Thomas Byrne: Ireland's EU Presidency - Priorities & Stakes

Go raibh maith agat a cheann Comhairle. Moir an honno domh sa labhairt an niof sa dáil ar ócháid lána thioireabh be. As European Affairs Minister, I'm proud to speak today to mark Europe Day. In less than eight weeks' time, on the 1st of July 2026, Ireland will take on the presidency of the Council of the European Union for the eighth time. The European project was not built for easy times. It was built precisely for moments like this, and it is delivering for Europe and for the people of Europe. A cheann Comhairle, bhfuilm thrí ruddy a dhéanamh an niof. First, I want to acknowledge the significance of this Europe Day in the context of our presidency of the Council. Secondly, I want to set out the priorities that Ireland intends to pursue. And thirdly, I want to speak honestly about what is at stake for Ireland and for Europe as we prepare to lead. Before I turn to the work ahead, I want to spend a moment on what the European Union has meant for Ireland, because I think that it is important, particularly in this House, to say it plainly. Over 53 years of EU membership, Ireland has been transformed. When we joined in 1973, we were an economy heavily dependent on one trading partner, the United Kingdom. We had limited access to international markets. We had no seat at the table. In any of the decisions that shaped our continent. Our membership of the European Union changed all that. It gave Irish business access to a market of now 450 million people. It gave Irish students the freedom to study across Europe. It gave Irish workers the right to live and work in 27 countries. It underpinned the Common Agricultural Policy, which supports our farming communities. The European Union protected the peace process in Northern Ireland during Brexit. But the protection of that peace was our first priority. I want to restate my thanks to our fellow EU member states and their citizens, parliamentarians and government members, for their solidarity during that time. Our European Union membership also helped us through the financial crisis. It helped us through a global pandemic. For Ireland, EU membership is not a political abstraction. It is the lived reality of every business, every farmer, every student, every family in the state. The Taoiseach has described the forthcoming Presidency of the Council as a Presidency that will be defined by action. This is a commitment rooted in a clear understanding of what a Council Presidency is and what it demands. During the Irish EU Presidency, we will act as an honest broker. We will chair the Council's work across all its formations. We will set agendas, build consensus, broker compromise and move forward a legislative programme of enormous breadth and consequence. But we will do this in the interests of all 27 EU member states. That impartiality is precisely what the Presidency is about, what gives it its authority and its influence. And the scale of what lies ahead is significant. In Brussels and Luxembourg alone, our ministers will chair dozens of formal Council meetings. Our officials will lead the work of approximately 180 Council preparatory bodies, most of which meet on a very regular basis. We will lead the Council's legislative engagement with the European Parliament across dozens of policy areas. And we will chair negotiations in a range of international multilateral forums, including the UN framework. Here in Ireland, the Taoiseach will host a meeting of the European political community, the largest event of its kind ever held in the state. Bringing together heads of state and government from 47 European countries to Dublin. And I think about the founding fathers and mothers of this country, how proud they would be to see a Taoiseach of Ireland leading 47 heads of state and government to Dublin as an equal partner with all of them. We will also host an informal meeting of the European Council. We will host up to 22 informal ministerial meetings, with approximately a quarter of these taking place outside Dublin, in every corner of this country. Ensuring that the EU presidency is truly national in its reach. We will set out our full EU presidency priorities and policy programme in early June, as is traditional. But what I can say is, our work is based around three broad pillars. Competitiveness, values and security. And this reflects the pillars of the EU strategic agenda for 2024 to 2029. The pillars are not independent of one another, they are interconnected and dependent. Without security, there can be no prosperity. Without competitiveness, we cannot sustain our societies and our jobs and our economies. And without values, without democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights, none of it matters and none of it, quite frankly, exists. Competitiveness is what ensures that the European economy thrives and that its citizens prosper. It's what delivers good jobs, good wages and a good life. And it is a genuine priority for Ireland's EU presidency. The context is clear. Europe faces real and serious competitiveness challenges, exacerbated of course by the fallout of the conflict in the Middle East, to which I will return. Indeed, our single market is very successful, but it remains a work in progress. The IMF has estimated that the internal barriers to trade in the European Union's single market amount to the equivalent of tariffs of 40% on goods and 110% on services. Energy costs are elevated and continue to rise. Investment in research and innovation has lagged. The regulatory burden on business, particularly on small and medium enterprises, is too high. At the informal European Council in Cyprus, European leaders signed the One Europe, One Market roadmap to address these issues. This has given us firm targets and a clear timetable. There are approximately 28 proposals which the joint statement calls to be agreed by the end of the Irish EU presidency, and we intend to deliver on that agenda. We will spare no effort in doing so, and we will rely of course on a matching level of commitment from other Member States, from the Commission, and from the European Parliament. Simplification of EU administrative rules is a top priority for the government and a top priority for our presidency. The European Council, the leaders, the democratically elected leaders of the Member States of the European Union, has called for a simplification revolution. That language reflects a genuine political consensus around that table, that the regulatory burden on businesses and citizens must be addressed. The Commission has set a target of reducing administrative burdens by 25% and 35% for small and medium businesses by the end of its current mandate, by 2029. It has proposed 10 simplification packages, known as Omnibus packages to date, covering sustainability reporting, due diligence, chemicals, digital regulations, environmental rules and more. Today we got political agreement between the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament on the AI Omnibus package. I have to say there were Irish Members of the European Parliament, Irish Members of the Council of course involved, and we want to thank the Cypriot presidency for their work. But this is a democratic process that is happening here to deliver not just easier rules for business, but in this case more protection for minors and other people affected by notification use in AI. The savings that are estimated from the simplification process for business are about €12 billion a year in the packages that have already been proposed by the Commission. I as European Affairs Minister sit on what's known as the General Affairs Council of the European Union, and during the EU presidency it would be my job to steer this simplification agenda on the General Affairs Council where it sits. And our primary focus and my primary focus is not deregulation, it's better regulation, it's cutting red tape. It's about ensuring that the rules that we have serve their intended purpose, but don't create unnecessary costs and complexity for business. And it matters for us as well because simplification can help address some of our most pressing domestic challenges in infrastructure, delivery and housing. And recently, along with six Member States in total, I have written to Commissioner Dombrowskis calling for simplification of permitting and planning rules in order to help us to continue to build more and more houses. And that agenda is gaining some considerable traction around the European Union. The single market is the engine of our success, deepening it, completing it of course with services in digital and capital markets, it's an Irish priority of long standing. The Savings and Investment Union, the proposed EU-Inc, the so-called EU-Inc proposal for company law, progress on the capital markets union, they're all central to our competitiveness agenda. Another critical area of work for our presidency, again that falls under the General Affairs Council and then with the leaders, will be the negotiation for what's called the multi-annual financial framework. That's the EU's long term budget for 2028 to 2034. The Commission has proposed a budget of 2 trillion euro to support competitiveness, decarbonisation, security, cohesion and Europe's global role. The shape of the budget will determine what kind of EU we will have for the next seven years. And it will be one of the most consequential pieces of work that any EU presidency undertakes and I'm more than happy to come in to the Dáil or to Siannidh or a committee at any point to update members on the work as this negotiation continues. Ireland approaches this with seriousness, with ambition and with a commitment to outcomes that work for all member states, including the smallest, most peripheral and those most dependent on cohesion funding. We've also set out our national priorities last year, which obviously take slightly second place now as we take on the presidency, but those national priorities are very, very clear. Central to them would be common agricultural policy and indeed funding for research and innovation through the Horizon Programme based on excellence. But we will work very, very seriously on this. Energy policy of course is to the fore again. The conflict in the Middle East has precipitated again an affordability crisis with a direct impact on Irish households and business. In response to the impact of events occurring in the Middle East, the government has responded with a package of substantial measures to help alleviate the pressure on Irish households and businesses. But in the medium to long term, decarbonisation and the adoption of green energy will be central to our energy security and competitiveness and this has been a key focus of the response at EU level. The government welcomes the Commission's package of proposed measures recently outlined in the communication called Accelerate EU. We will take forward this work during our presidency and we're committed to making meaningful progress on the grids package and other key files which will speed up the deployment of renewables and bolster our own security of energy supply. The renewed agenda for EU-UK cooperation will be a priority during our presidency as well and again this is something that is on the agenda regularly at the General Affairs Council. I welcome the agreed ambition to conclude negotiations on a youth experience scheme, a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement and on linking our respective emissions trading systems by the next EU-UK summit. In a challenging geopolitical environment, we see the UK as a vital like-minded partner and it is in our mutual interest, of course, to have a close relationship also in the area of foreign policy and security policy. In Canada, the EU is first and foremost a union of values. They are set out in Article 2 of the Treaty on the European Union. They're not aspirational guidelines, they're legally binding on us and they're the foundation upon which everything is built. We will be an unambiguous champion of those values. We will address challenges to the rule of law, including democratic backsliding, wherever they arise. I will steer the ongoing work in this area as Chair of the General Affairs Council, making full use of the rule of law toolbox and paying close attention to the findings of the European Commission's annual rule of law report. The rule of law is not just a peripheral concern, it underpins the effective functioning of the single market. It's absolutely essential to the single market and I always say that Ireland's own adherence to the rule of law over many decades has been really essential and a sine qua non to our economic success. Under the rule of law, our values make our EU membership worth having and we must maintain it with conviction and without compromise. Values include enlargement. It is more than 13 years since a new member state, Croatia, joined the Union. That's too long. The enlargement process is one of the most powerful instruments that the EU possesses for security, for stability and for the long-term prosperity of our continent. Growing our Union is the best way to secure our continent. I believe that we have a generational opportunity and a generational obligation to keep moving forward. I was in Kiev six weeks ago to mark St. Patrick's Day with Ukrainian people and our diplomats in Kiev, the occasion of the first official St. Patrick's Day reception held at Ireland's embassy in Kiev since it opened in 2021. During that visit, I met with senior figures in the Ukrainian government and gave them Ireland's personal assurance that we will do everything we can during our EU presidency to advance Ukraine's accession process. Ukraine's destiny, I believe, lies in the European Union. That conviction will underpin Ireland's work during our presidency as Ukraine continues its fight against Russia's illegal and barbaric war. Moldova, too, has shown deep democratic courage as people voted in favour of an EU path for their country despite relentless external interference. Montenegro might be small in population but it is determined in purpose and they are working to meet the criteria for membership. Albania is advancing. The Western Balkans and former Yugoslavia must not be left waiting indefinitely. As EU presidency, Ireland will work to sustain the momentum on enlargement and to ensure that bilateral disputes cannot be allowed to slow down individual candidacies. We support the use of qualified majority voting when deciding to open negotiating clusters, as proposed by Germany and Slovenia. We believe this is a practical measure to keep progress moving forward while preserving unanimity for the final decisions. In the context of a deteriorating and increasingly contested international security environment, the need for greater international engagement and cooperation, especially through the EU, is vitally important for Ireland. Ireland is supportive of the initiatives at EU level to increase resilience and capabilities of EU member states. We see value in EU member states and partners working together to mitigate the threats and challenges we collectively face. Ireland is investing significantly in our own security and defence architecture to confront new threats and to protect our citizens and our economy. We have increased national defence spending by 43% since 2020.