{"id":123504,"date":"2026-07-06T15:15:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T15:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/123504\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T15:15:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T15:15:16","slug":"report-irelands-progressive-eu-presidency-a-show-for-brussels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/123504\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Ireland’s progressive EU presidency a show for Brussels"},"content":{"rendered":"

A report from MCC Brussels argues that Ireland\u2019s progressive EU presidency agenda, largely in-line with the European Commission\u2019s priorities, glazes over concrete difficulties the country has with active proposals such as CAP payment cuts and new corporate levies that \u201ccould threaten the country\u2019s low-tax model\u201d.<\/p>\n

It does this, the report claims, to protect its reputational brand as a model EU member state.<\/p>\n

The briefing, titled The Model Member State: Ireland\u2019s EU Council Presidency<\/a>, says that Ireland\u2019s role as the EU\u2019s \u201cmodel citizen\u201d will be challenged by negotiations concerning the Union\u2019s long-term budgetary plan, the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).<\/p>\n

This is because, its argument goes, the MFF negotiations contain two \u201chighly difficult\u201d elements for Ireland: a potential 30 percent Common Agricultural Policy reduction, and new corporate levies that uniquely threaten the country\u2019s economic model, centred on attracting multinational corporations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIreland\u2019s economy runs on Silicon Valley\u2019s European tax arrangements, while its farms run on methane-intensive beef and dairy. Brussels wants to cut both,\u201d the MCC paper reads, warning that \u201cIreland\u2019s reputation as a model citizen may prove difficult to sustain in the face of a budget that cuts directly against its own economic interests\u201d.<\/p>\n

On social policy and \u201cvalues\u201d \u2013 one of the pillars of the Irish presidency \u2013 the Brussels-based think-tank says, \u201cthere is no such tension\u201d.<\/p>\n

It highlights such inclusions in Ireland\u2019s presidency programme as its support for the \u2018AgoraEU\u2019<\/a> programme, the \u20ac8.5 billion-EU funding programme for culture, media and \u201ccivil society\u201d. Through its various strands, it supports such measures as supporting access to \u201ctrustworthy information\u201d, \u201ctackling disinformation\u201d and combating threats to \u201cdemocracy\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Irish EU presidency is based on the three pillars of \u201ccompetitiveness\u201d, \u201cvalues\u201d and \u201csecurity\u201d, which Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin said would \u201cenhance the competitiveness of Europe\u2019s economy, safeguard the fundamental values of our Union at home and abroad, and provide for the security of our citizens\u201d.<\/p>\n

The conservative think-tank\u2019s report estimates that under these pillars, the Irish presidency will assume strict EU accession criteria for candidate states such as Montenegro, Albania, Moldova and Ukraine, involving the acceptance of European standards on matters related to sexuality and gender, despite domestic opposition in some cases.<\/p>\n

It also highlights the Irish government\u2019s support for age-verification measures for social media access, which it argues could \u201ceffectively end anonymity online\u201d.<\/p>\n

In light of these policy priorities, it accuses Ireland of being \u201ca champion of \u2018gold-plating\u2019\u201d, which it describes as the practice of \u201ctaking an EU directive (which sets a minimum standard member states must meet) and beefing it up with more requirements, expanded scope, or tighter thresholds than Brussels asked for\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A report from MCC Brussels argues that Ireland\u2019s progressive EU presidency agenda, largely in-line with the European Commission\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[104],"tags":[211,210,41681,60719,60713,23813,59442],"class_list":["post-123504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brussels","tag-belgium","tag-brussels","tag-cap","tag-corporation-tax","tag-eu-presidency","tag-mcc-brussels","tag-values"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116873692917371296","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}