The game Ireland played successfully in the European Union is over. The old playbook won’t work any more. The EU is changing fundamentally, and we need to cop on and catch up quickly. The big issue about Brexit was never the UK leaving, it was about us being there afterwards without them. We had successfully coasted in the middle of a pack that usually but not always consisted of the British, the Nordics and the Dutch. It shifted on different issues, but there was a comfort zone. But those were different times.
The EU focus was internal, and we mastered a sometimes sluggish system. Now the focus is increasingly external, and the world has changed. The EU is either in the early stages of transformation into a major geopolitical player, or set to fail in trying to become one. Even though agreement among 27 countries is frequently difficult to achieve, the Council of EU leaders and the European Commission are now more forceful agents of change. Covid-19 and the invasion of Ukraine ensured power flowed to the centre more rapidly than in all the previous 20 years. The effect of the second Trump administration has intensified momentum. The EU status quo we prospered in for 50 years is over. That is half the life of our state, and most of the lifetime of our current population.
If the game has changed and become less convivial, our vital interest in the EU has increased. The question about whether we are closer to Boston or Berlin never existed. But it was an ambiguity that has been clarified to our disadvantage. When push came to shove our business was done in Brussels, a place we are less well placed than before.
Politically, managing the State’s approach to Europe is also going to be more difficult. It requires sharper focus and more political capital. Foreign policy for the EU is no longer platitudes we can happily sign up to. It is reshaped by real and present danger. For the Nordic and Baltic States security is now pre-eminent. In a country that succeeded in sensitising the EU to the intricacies of the Irish border, we seem tone deaf to the concerns of states in the east about Russia. Ireland was well suited to an EU that was not geopolitical. We could be simultaneously parochial and international.
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Freeloading on defence is no longer a free kick politically. The review of the National Development Plan indicates a future uptick in defence spending, but it will take years to achieve basic competencies. Oddly, the strongest proponents of neutrality seemed the most indifferent to national defence.
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After decades of slow and frequently unsteady evolution, the EU is in fast-forward mode. The Irish experience of membership was of enrichment economically and enablement politically. It is now becoming increasingly about obligation. We are net contributors financially, and more importantly the culture and focus of the EU are changing completely.
The deeper reasons for staying, and the effort required to succeed, won’t be counted simply as payments and subsidies in future. The value of the EU single market when free trade is under attack is greater than ever. That will require Irish support for trade deals including CETA with Canada and Mercosur with Latin America. India and Indonesia may not be far behind.
In the lead-in to the EU–US tariff deal, we conducted our diplomacy in plain sight, posting online about the need for restraint in Brussels and hope for accommodation with the Americans. That digital blathering was a sorry degeneration of once finely honed and well-connected diplomacy
The importance of defence requires not only more spending here; in the EU, it means displacement for other priorities. Allocations for agricultural and cohesion will shrink in relative terms. The Republic has been ambiguous about the development of capital markets unions. It would, if realised, create huge non-bank sources of investment. We say we are for it, but we are not a progressive force. The fences we sit on are being knocked over.
Political investment at home will be required to make the case for the EU. There is no alternative and no danger of an Irish exit, but what will be costly is our lack of application.
Denmark was once disgruntled and drifting towards the margins but is now at the centre. It invested politically at home in recalibrating the relationship. A similar stock taking is required here, but there seems to be little awareness and even less interest. Instead, in the lead-in to the EU–US tariff deal, we conducted our diplomacy in plain sight, posting online incessantly about the need for restraint in Brussels, and hope for accommodation with the Americans. That digital blathering was a sorry degeneration of once finely honed and well-connected diplomacy.
The EU is much more important to us than in the past. Our relationship to Europe is vital to our interests. The challenge is to explain that clearly and to make a case publicly. We must deal with issues in the round rather than based on the handful of votes, in a handful of constituencies that can change the result of an Irish general election. Being at the centre in Brussels requires new credentials we have yet to acquire.
