by Ross Elwood
BRUXELLES (Public Policy Europe) – It was a week dominated by the Belgian red card controversy, NATO, and the first full working week of the Irish Presidency (analysis below). The Parliament heads into its final working week before the summer recess, but the Council will continue to meet until the end of July.
The Facts
The following facts are compiled from hundreds of updates on the Public Policy Europe Newswires this week. Find out more about the newswire here.
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AI/Competitiveness: Eurogroup President Kyriakos Pierrakakis wants regular discussions on AI’s impact on the financial sector, with Mistral AI CEO Arthur Mensch invited to brief ministers on how the EU can build capability in the sector and on AI’s impact on labour markets, taxation, and banking. The Eurogroup won’t issue instructions to banks on AI risk management — that’s left to supervisory bodies like the ECB. The focus is competitiveness, amid concern that heavy risk-focused regulation has pushed AI development outside the EU.
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Capital Markets: Ireland will ask the 27 finance ministers, at today’s Ecofin, to commit to reaching agreement by 9 October on the capital markets integration and financial supervision package (Misp). The plan is to close Council-level negotiations by October, then spend the final two months of the year negotiating with Parliament.
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Electrification Strategy: The Commission plans to adopt a rating/label scheme to improve transparency on data centres’ energy consumption, per a draft electrification plan due next week. Also planned: a revision of the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) by end of this year to speed up charger rollout, and a revision of the Clean Vehicles Directive by end-2027 to tighten public procurement targets.
The Analysis
01. Ireland’s weakness on security has potential to cause wider issues
It’s been about a week since the Irish Presidency began, and it is under pressure. As previously highlighted, the Irish EU Presidency could in fact turn into a negative for Ireland, as it risks showing off Ireland’s desynchronisation with the EU agenda.
Ireland has spent the last week defending its position of not adding Aughinish Alumina (the Limerick refinery that supplies alumina, and which continues to export to Russia) to the Russia sanctions list. This comes after Ireland made support for Ukraine one of the central components of its Presidency programme. It comes in parallel with a major NATO summit that took place on Tuesday and Wednesday, which in the run-up put the spotlight on Irish defence and security and already has member states nervous about Ireland’s commitment to EU security. An article this week from Italian journalist David Carretta likewise flags Ireland’s military neutrality as one of the weak points its Presidency will be tested on and describes Ireland as something of a free-rider on security when it comes to protecting its vast maritime borders.
Ireland’s weakness on security has the potential to cause wider issues, the perception that it is not a team player. Most EU member states are having to make tough decisions in this new geopolitical world on defence spending, Russian sanctions, and trade diversification. Western Europe is in an existential crisis over the weaponisation of trade, while Eastern Europe faces an existential crisis over the threat of invasion.
During the press conference on Ireland’s Presidency priorities, von der Leyen arrived with a list of EU priorities she wants Ireland to focus on, and cleverly slotted them into Ireland’s own priority themes. On trade, she pointed to Ireland’s open-trade credentials as an asset in finishing diversification agreements with Mexico and India (Ireland itself wants to focus on the deal with the US). On defence and security, one of the three pillars of the Irish Presidency, she said the EU must take more responsibility for its own defence and spoke at length about the SAFE funding programme, of which Ireland has chosen not to take up loans. In return, she flagged housing as a priority, highlighting the launch of a Housing Alliance during the Presidency and an upcoming Housing Summit.
Both the support Ireland received during Brexit and Ireland’s vote against the Mercosur deal in Council earlier this year (seen in the EU as a damaging, populist move) are well remembered in a town where politics is highly transactional.
02. Tracker: Irish Presidency
This week marked the first full week of business for the Irish EU Presidency, consisting of a presentation of the Irish Presidency’s priorities to the Commission in the form of a visit from the College of Commissioners, and a presentation of Ireland’s priorities to Parliament in the plenary session. Both of these discussions, and the press conferences that followed, gave some interesting telltale signs of items to track over the next six months.
The Taoiseach has identified completing the EU budget as the most important EU priority to get done. Micheál Martin has spoken widely over the past week about completing the MFF in 2026, and during his press conference with Ursula von der Leyen he noted that when he spoke to other European leaders before the Irish Presidency began, they identified this as their key issue. Important to note as this may be at the expense of the other one market roadmap priorities that were due to be completed by the end of the year.
Ireland’s position on the “Made in EU” agenda is to invest in research and development and in scaling. The Taoiseach brought the Commission President to the Tyndall National Institute semiconductor research facility during her visit and afterward stated that the EU needs to build European hyperscalers through investment in research and development. Ireland due to its open trading economy and heavy reliance on FDI was nervous about the EU’s autonomy push but seems to have established good messaging on the topic.
Ireland’s position on the EU-China trade imbalance is to favour dialogue. This is worth noting as a key moment in EU-China relations will come in October, when progress on efforts to rebalance trade with China is due to come to a head. (Public Policy Europe)
(foto cc Palazzo Chigi)
