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\n The speech and Q&A was streamed on Bloomberg’s website.\n<\/p>\n
TAOISEACH MICHE\u00c1L MARTIN has said that Russia is \u201cbecoming more reckless\u201d in its continuing war on Ukraine and poses an \u201cexistential threat\u201d to the eastern countries in the European Union.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He was speaking at the Dublin offices of business and news platform Bloomberg as part of its EU policy series, with his speech and subsequent Q&A streamed on its website.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His comments come a day after Germany blamed Russia for a \u201chybrid attack\u201d involving an explosive-laden drone at Leipzig airport last month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The attack saw German police forced to use a robot to defuse a device near a Ukrainian cargo plane. Another drone was reportedly found weeks later near the airport, also with traces of an explosive substance.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Bloomberg this afternoon, Martin said\u00a0Ireland\u2019s presidency of the EU Council comes \u201cat a very pivotal moment for Europe\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe geopolitical situation is very uncertain. It\u2019s complex, it\u2019s very challenging, and the rules-based international order is under threat,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo there\u2019s a particular significance attached to the European Union, working with others to endeavour to sustain the multilateral system and an international rules-based order, and a lot of work is underway in that respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said security is a key pillar for the presidency, adding that there is a real sense across the EU that \u201cwe have to do an awful lot more\u201d in terms of security and defence capability.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means cooperation. No one will be doing this on their own, and it means sharing intelligence, sharing knowledge across the board, and it means very strong support for Ukraine.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Criticism of defence spend analysts<\/p>\n
He highlighted how much Europe has financially supported Ukraine since the war began in February 2022, with the most recent agreement of \u20ac90 billion earlier this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reflecting on a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing earlier this year, Martin said Ukraine \u201cstill have enormous gaps in terms of what they require financially to defend themselves, and particularly on the technology side\u201d.<\/p>\n
\n The speech and Q&A was streamed on Bloomberg’s website.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt brought home to me the enormous cost of this war. It\u2019s just quite staggering in terms of what is occurring. But there\u2019s also a sense within Europe that it must become more self-reliant.<\/p>\n
\nRussia is aggressive, and as we see in Leipzig, to a degree, very reckless as well now, becoming more reckless in terms of what it\u2019s looking at endeavouring to do on the soil of European member states.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Martin said Europe can\u2019t ignore this reality and hit out at analyses he had read that said Europe was \u201cdoing business for rearming its military-industrial complex\u201d, adding that the bloc has \u201ca lot of gaps\u201d when it comes to its own security and defence capability.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a real sense in Europe, particularly on the eastern flank, an existential sense that they\u2019re under threat from an aggressive Russia, and that if Ukraine was to fall, others are next. That\u2019s the reality.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople of this part of the world may not have that same sense of existential threat, but believe me, when you meet Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Polish, Finnish and others, it\u2019s there and it\u2019s very, very real. And it\u2019s a bit disconcerting that some analysts, from maybe particular perspectives, refuse to acknowledge that reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin also spoke about the other two underpinning Ireland\u2019s presidency of the EU council: competitiveness and values.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want our presidency to deliver tangible improvements to people in their daily lives and to businesses as they work in trade across the single market.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said there is an opportunity over the next few months to deliver on a roadmap for making the bloc more competitive, which will prioritise further simplifying rules and reducing regulatory and administrative burdens and harmful barriers to trade.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Budget<\/p>\n
Another item on the agenda, which Martin is hopeful will be at conclusion stage by the end of the year, is \u201cthe savings and investment union\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the idea of unleashing the potential of Europe\u2019s savings to be used for the benefit of businesses, communities, and families in every part of Europe, also really increasing the level of capital available to businesses in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
There will also be a focus on accelerating decarbonisation while ensuring affordable energy and \u201cdriving the digital and AI transformation\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n
Martin also said ministers would have to find \u201ca landing zone\u201d for the 2028-2034 European budget in the coming months.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the key aims of Ireland\u2019s EU presidency is to agree the long-term budget, known as the multiannual financial framework (MFF), before the end of the year.<\/p>\n
The Taoiseach said there are \u201chuge issues\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cQuite a number of what we call the frugal states believe the budget is too high, and they want to reduce it. Others want to make sure we maintain the Commission\u2019s draft in respect of cap and cohesion, which are established pillars of the union.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said there had been \u201ca lot of shadowboxing up to now\u201d, but that the challenge now is how to guide negotiations \u201cso that it creates a realistic framework for people to say, \u2018well, actually, game on now\u2019.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not saying I\u2019m enjoying that work, but it\u2019s kind of interesting getting the different positions of 27 other member states, and trying to figure out where we land this and how do we get to a position where we think we can bring it to a conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAOISEACH MICHE\u00c1L MARTIN has said that Russia is \u201cbecoming more reckless\u201d in its continuing war on Ukraine and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[283502,4932,9,10,4893,99989,1015,2219,13,14,6,17,11,12,15,16,5765,5,550,983,7,8,551,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-670931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-big-bloomberg-interview","tag-bloomberg","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eu","tag-eu-presidency","tag-europe","tag-european-union","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-micheal-martin","tag-news","tag-russia","tag-security","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-ukraine","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117208863186163556","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}