BRUSSELS, June 28 — Ireland formally assumes the rotating presidency of the European Union at a moment of severe challenge, and the legislative programme it must steer through reflects that intensity, according to the source. The EU is consumed by war in Ukraine and the Middle East and the high energy prices that followed, and what the source describes as a painful divorce from the Trump Administration. That involves a dramatic recalibration of its security and defence policies.
Separately, there are big challenges in Europe’s relationship with China, whether through accusations of Chinese dumping on the European market or the EU’s dependency on its critical minerals. The reports by former Italian prime ministers Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta have laid bare Europe’s chronic lack of competitiveness and the incomplete nature of the single market, the source shows.
Those findings, combined with the trade war inflicted by the Trump Administration, have shocked EU leaders into tackling Europe’s own internal competitiveness problems and how Europe competes in the world, according to the source. The next seven-year EU budget, from 2028-2034, will be different in structure and scale. It will place a greater emphasis on competitiveness and defence, and less on farm spending and cohesion.
Getting agreement among 26 other member states on the EU budget will be the biggest challenge facing the presidency, the source confirms. A raft of new initiatives has been bundled into a roadmap called One Europe, One Market, which will dominate the competitiveness agenda.
The crucial point, according to the source, is that this roadmap comes with a timetable. Elsewhere, the EU is overhauling existing rules in the digital and tech sphere, while energy prices and EU enlargement will also dominate the presidency’s agenda. The Government’s objective is to get as much EU law over the line by December.
The presidency runs against a backdrop of an EU consumed by war, a recalibrated relationship with Washington, and the structural challenge of competing with China. How Dublin manages the competing pressures of defence spending, farm subsidies, and the single market will define its six months at the helm.
