What will Dublin's EU presidency bring?
Ireland takes over the EU's rotating Council presidency today. Among the key issues on the agenda during its six-month term are new regulations on artificial intelligence, negotiations on the EU's long-term budget for 2028 to 2034, and EU enlargement. Commentators take very different views of Ireland's potential to steer the EU in the right direction.
Europe must learn from the Emerald Isle
This small country is ideally suited to lead Europe, The Irish Times claims:
“Ireland's support for open international trading and competitive EU markets adds real value to economic policy. Its experience of peace-making on this island, peacekeeping internationally, commitment to a just two-state resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and continuing development aid are significant. So is the commitment to EU enlargement with the goal of peaceful continental integration. They offer a counter to ill-advised moves to privilege military strength over political agreement.”
Too chummy with the tech giants
Dublin is not an impartial mediator on sensitive digital issues, warns columnist Johnny Ryan in The Guardian:
“The EU's tech and AI rulebook will be renegotiated during the same period, but the Irish state and economy have been captured by big tech. Ireland is so compromised that as president of the Council of the EU, it should recuse itself from all tech and digital sovereignty negotiations. ... If it will not recuse itself from all tech discussions during its six-month presidency, then Berlin, Paris, Warsaw, Madrid and Brussels should pile the same kind of pressure on Ireland some of them did after the banking crisis. What was unfair then would be entirely fair this time.”