DUBLIN — The last time Ireland ran the European Union’s rotating presidency, the country was still picking through the wreckage of a banking collapse. A bailout from the EU and the International Monetary Fund was fresh. The presidency budget was slashed to around €64 million.
Diplomats called it the “tap water Presidency.” That was 2013. The Ireland that takes the reins on Wednesday is a different country entirely.
It is now a net contributor to the EU. It is one of the wealthiest member states by GDP. The cost of this presidency is expected to run up to €400 million once security is factored in.
The contrast is not just about money. It is about what the EU itself has become.
“The EU is a much bigger beast than it was in 2013,” one Irish diplomat told RTÉ Europe Editor Tony Connelly. “It’s a different world. There are more competencies and they are more complicated.” The sheer volume of legislation Ireland must steer through the Council of the EU, one diplomat suggested, could not be greater.
The list is long. A string of crises has reshaped the bloc since 2013: terrorism, migration, Brexit, Covid, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the return of Donald Trump. Each crisis pushed member states to hand the EU deeper, more far-reaching powers.
What is at stake now, compared to previous presidencies, is of a different order entirely. That is the core fact.
The presidency itself is a six-month administrative wheel — it rotates among member states. But the wheel now turns inside a machine far more powerful than the one Ireland last operated. Ireland has held the presidency seven times since joining the European Economic Community in 1973.
This will be the eighth. The timing is anything but routine.
The recovery from the banking crisis earned Ireland credit in Brussels. The unwavering support shown by the EU during that period is still remembered. That goodwill may help now.
But goodwill does not shrink a legislative agenda. It does not simplify a single file. The cost alone signals how much has changed. €400 million is more than six times the 2013 budget.
Security costs are a major driver. The EU is a bigger target.
Ireland, as its public face for six months, will be one too. In 2013, Ireland was still a net recipient of EU funds. The country was bruised.
The presidency was lean, almost austere. Diplomats kept costs low.
The message was: we are not wasting money we do not have. That message no longer applies. Ireland is now a net contributor.
It is one of the wealthiest member states. The presidency budget reflects that reality. But wealth does not make the job easier.
The competencies of the EU have expanded. The crises that drove that expansion have not ended.
The bloc is still dealing with the aftermath of Brexit. The war in Ukraine grinds on. The return of Donald Trump to the White House reshapes transatlantic relations.
Migration remains unresolved. The pandemic exposed weaknesses in supply chains and public health coordination.
All of this lands on Ireland’s desk. The Irish government must steer legislation through the EU’s law-making machinery. It must broker compromises among 27 member states.
It must manage a presidency that is bigger, more expensive, and more consequential than any it has run before. One diplomat put it bluntly. “The EU is a much bigger beast than it was in 2013.” The beast has more teeth.
Ireland has to handle it for six months. The credit earned from the banking crisis may help.
The goodwill is real. But the job is not about goodwill. It is about managing a legislative load that one diplomat described as the maximum possible.
It is about running a presidency that costs €400 million. It is about operating in a world where the EU holds powers it did not have in 2013.
That is the story. Not the budget. Not the contrast with 2013.
The story is what the EU has become, and what it demands of the country holding its wheel.
