High summer at Farmleigh, with a pleasant breeze and the mercury rising lazily to a comfortable resting spot in the mid-to-low 20s. It probably felt like a welcome respite for the visiting European entourage – German chancellor Friedrich Merz flew in from Berlin, where it’s predicted to hit the mid-30s by Thursday.
The Irish summer was still warm enough to encourage the wildlife out in the Phoenix Park, with massive dragonflies swooping and darting over the heads of Merz and Taoiseach Micheál Martin as they took questions during the German leader’s flying visit to Dublin.
The insects were so big they almost could have triggered anti-drone technologies brought in to protect visiting European bigwigs during Ireland’s presidency of the council of the European Union. Maybe the anti-drone kit is smart enough to tell the difference between different types of hovering bandits – or maybe, like the translation headsets being used to relay Merz’s remarks in real-time, it just wasn’t working properly.
The handheld translators were sparsely distributed through the crowd of journalists and officials, only appearing in some hands more than halfway through the event. And when they did, the service was patchy. Hacks and mandarins weren’t the only ones affected – actual important people were impacted too. The Taoiseach was clearly having issues, signalling his difficulties to an aide on a few occasions. What’s the German for “is this thing on?”.
By our count, Martin cycled through three separate headsets during the press conference, at one stage explaining to a German journalist: “This is working intermittently, so was that question to me as well?”
The headsets were manufactured by German industrial powerhouse Bosch. At least there can be some German-Irish burden-sharing of the embarrassment for the malfunction.
As for the main event, there was no missing the signal being sent by Merz on the EU budget. Making progress on this is one of the main tasks of the Irish presidency, and the German leader wasn’t slow to remind everyone of his country’s commitment to frugality. He criticised European Commission plans to add up to 2,500 civil servants in Brussels, pointing out that his administration wants to slim its workforce by 8 per cent in the next four years.
The current proposed budget for the EU, he said, needs to be slashed by several hundred billion euro – and he added he was “confident” the Taoiseach would “table a realistic proposal” during the Irish presidency. Over to you, Micheál.
Merz was the soul of diplomacy when it came to Irish exports of alumina to Russia, saying such things were for discussion in private. But he was bullish in his defence of the German judicial system after accusations from Irish parliamentarians that Dubliner Daniel Tatlow-Devally is facing a “show trial” over charges of trespassing and criminal damage to an Israeli-owned arms factory in Ulm. He also made it clear that Germany is not for turning when it comes to opposing sanctions on Israel over its conduct in Gaza and elsewhere.
Nothing lost in translation there.