US President Donald Trump pointedly did not refer to his latest tariff threat once during a long and, at times, rambling address to delegates at the World Economic Forum in Davos and later said he was no longer intending to impose the taxes from February 1st. But, writes Eoin Burke-Kennedy, he made clear he is not for backing down on his ambition to acquire Greenland, although he did reassure his audience that he did not intend to use force to land the prize.
But damage has already been done with the threat of further tariffs as the European Parliament suspended ratification of the EU-US agreement earlier in the day.
Also at Davos, EU justice commissioner Michael McGrath said Russia was the “unequivocal winner” in Europe’s deepening rift with the US over Greenland, with EU-US relations reaching a “dangerous moment”.
Eoin also joins host Ciarán Hancock on the Inside Business podcast to report on how the star-studded annual get-together has been hijacked by the US president and his Arctic plan.
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Moving from one deadly serious transatlantic spat to another lighter one, Ryanair group chief Michael O’Leary said his airline would happily install Elon Musk’s Starlink wifi system on its fleet of aircraft if the Tesla boss agrees to pay for the extra fuel it would require – a bill that, he says, comes to €250 million. Barry O’Halloran was at a quite exceptional press conference.
Back to issues that matter more to people at a practical level, first-time buyers accounted for close to 40 per cent of all homebuyers in November, with close to half of those buying existing homes as CSO data shows the rate of inflation in the property market cooling marginally – to 6.6 per cent in November from 7.2 per cent the previous month, writes Colin Gleeson.
In Strasbourg, MEPs voted to refer the Mercosur trade agreement with South American countries to the European Court of Justice to determine whether it complies with EU treaties. That puts its ratification process on ice for up to two years, giving the European Commission a major conundrum on whether it can operate the deal provisionally in the meantime. Jack Power has the details.
UK banking giant Barclays confirmed it is going ahead with a plan to move its EU headquarters from Dublin to Paris, though it says it continues to have “significant ambitions” for its business in Ireland.
PTSB won some relief on how much capital it needs to hold against its mortgage book, but not as much as analysts had been expecting, writes Joe Brennan.
Sticking with banking, Revolut country manager Malcolm Craig told an Oireachtas committee that it is currently sending as many as 80 suspicious activity reports a day to An Garda Síochána, while defending the bank’s record on customer service. But, writes Joe Brennan, there was no update on its promised entry to the Irish mortgage market.
Also before an Oireachtas committee, Irish Tourism Industry Confederation chief Eoghan O’Mara Walsh said tens of thousands of properties used for short-term lets would disappear under new planning rules coming into force in May. It was, he said “critical that regional Ireland does not lose thousands of holiday homes”. Hugh Dooley reports.
The Donald Trump-owned Doonbeg Golf Resort is looking to expand its hospitality offering with a new ballroom and other upgrades that have the support of the local community, if observations on the planning application are anything to go by.
In technology, Ciara O’Brien guides parents through new online safety and content rules set down by the European Union that allow them to actively keep their children safe when it comes to the increasingly toxic world of social media. If your child is on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or Snapchat, she shows you the steps you need to take.
The rapid rise of singer Sienna Rose presents a problem for the music industry, writes Emmet Ryan. It’s not terribly clear if Rose really exists or if she is simply a production of AI. And blurring that line could be a real challenge for the industry and those who make their living in it.
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