Ireland’s EU presidency puts its contradictions on display: Atlantic tax haven, digital gatekeeper, defence free‑rider

Since gaining independence a little over 100 years ago, and subsequently joining the EEC in 1973, the Irish state has maintained strong diplomatic credentials among European partners. Throughout this time, Ireland has been very well looked upon due to its commercial openness, consensus-building, and rich cultural brand. Deemed a modern economic success story, the small northwestern EU member state has recorded extraordinary and rapid financial growth in recent decades, in large part due to enormous investment from US tech and pharmaceutical giants. In an EU context, Ireland’s evolution is striking, with the country shifting from being a long-term net beneficiary of EU funds to the second-highest net contributor per capita in recent years, behind only the Netherlands. In terms of identity and interests, Ireland has historically occupied a unique place in the European Union, positioned somewhere between the Anglosphere and continental Europe. Certainly, Ireland holds deep cultural connections with other English-speaking countries like the US, Britain, Canada, and Australia, with these nations also sharing many legal and administrative frameworks. Further, the country’s modern political economy has generally remained closer to the neoliberal US-UK tradition, rather than the more social democratic continental approach. Despite this, Irish voters maintain an overwhelmingly pro-EU stance, with recent polling demonstrating that 82 percent of citizens support membership of the bloc, one of the most EU-favourable populations, alongside Malta and Lithuania. Brexit solidarity from Brussels Undoubtedly, the solidarity granted to Ireland by the EU during the knotty and intense Brexit process, which enabled the crucial preservation of border fluidity on the island, strengthened ties significantly. Despite its much relied-upon economic potency and diplomatic clout, Ireland must now seriously reflect on its strategic priorities and political interests, as the country navigates the EU presidency for the next several months on a highly turbulent international landscape. In fact, Dublin risks significant reputational downgrade within the EU if it does not demonstrate a robust and responsible vision for its future relationship with Europe. In a period of intense geopolitical flux, with US isolationism and hostility posing existential threats to the international order, the EU is undertaking profound work to boost its economic agency and ability to defend itself on the world stage. The overarching objective of EU strategic autonomy is to accelerate European sovereignty and reduce chronic dependencies in economic supply chains, security and defence capacity, and energy supply. Considering this geopolitical backdrop, Ireland’s outlier policy positions, once seen as relatively benign, are becoming increasingly difficult to justify. For one, Ireland’s ultra-low corporate tax model facilitates the market access and economic interests of giant non-EU digital operators in Europe. Major US and Chinese platforms like Meta, X, Google, Apple, Microsoft, OpenAI, TikTok, Shein and Temu all have their European headquarters in Ireland, seek to influence Ireland’s regulatory framework on data privacy, and pay negligible levels of tax for the pleasure. Further, Ireland’s defence spend is almost null at 0.2 percent, the single lowest of all 27 EU member states. A particularly concerning feature here is the lack of strategic capacity to monitor the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone, which covers up to 450,000 square kilometres (10 times the size of the island) and the majority of transatlantic sub-sea cables, in which Russian fleets have been recently traversing. Consequently, the Irish government, with its infinitesimal contribution in this area, is now responsible for steering EU security strategy until the end of 2026, when in practical terms, it does not participate in the European defence sphere. In other words, Ireland is currently chairing these high-level intergovernmental forums but has practically zero skin in the game. As the EU moves to bolster its security posture, and more assertively reign in big tech power, how does Ireland square such circles and lead EU negotiations with contradictory domestic interests? Instead of projecting strategic autonomy, Ireland risks projecting strategic ambiguity at the precise moment when geopolitical decisiveness is needed the most. How can the EU speak with one voice and remain credible internationally when Ireland is passively undermining this agenda through its paradoxical policy framework? The Irish government is forecasted to spend up to €400m on its EU Presidency, potentially four times that of the recent Danish and Cypriot presidencies. While much of this money will be allocated to policing and security of high-level events, such an eye-watering sum raises the question: is Ireland simply attempting to dazzle the rest of the EU with a glorified PR exercise to sanitise its image in light of growing misdeeds? The ultimate questions that Dublin must seek to answer now are; where does Ireland want to sit in a changed EU political space without the UK, and with a US that is increasingly hostile to the EU, exposing Ireland’s unique arrangements on defence and digital questions? And secondly, what does the Irish state genuinely wish to achieve, in strategic terms, from its EU presidency? By the time of the informal European Council summit in November, we may have some much-needed clarity.