{"id":417657,"date":"2025-09-12T05:32:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T05:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/417657\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T05:32:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T05:32:12","slug":"dont-forget-the-islands-ireland-and-cyprus-nudge-eu-on-funding-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/417657\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t forget the islands – Ireland and Cyprus nudge EU on funding \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland and Cyprus<\/a> have appealed to the European Commission<\/a> not to forget about island states when thinking about how to shake up the EU\u2019s trillion-euro budget for funding schemes and subsidies. <\/p>\n

Correspondence shows behind the scenes Government lobbying to protect EU funding for transport projects, which have helped finance works in the ports of Dublin<\/a>, Cork<\/a> and Rosslare<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The commission \u2013 the EU\u2019s executive branch that proposes laws \u2013 has pitched for an expanded \u20ac2 trillion budget that would overhaul Common Agricultural Policy (Cap) payments to farmers and many other funding schemes. <\/p>\n

The proposal is just the starting point for two years of negotiations to agree the size of the EU\u2019s next seven-year budget, which will run from 2028 onwards. <\/p>\n

In a joint June 26th letter, Minister for Transport Darragh O\u2019Brien<\/a> and his Cypriot equivalent, Alexis Vafeades, pressed the commission to protect money to improve islands\u2019 transport links during the talks. <\/p>\n

The letter to EU transport commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said the two island countries wanted to convey their \u201cjoint concerns\u201d about funding for transport in the next EU budget. <\/p>\n

The focus should not only be limited to linking up European road and train networks, the letter said. Rather, a \u201cfair and equitable balance\u201d needed to be struck that put enough money aside to build up the transport links of island nations. <\/p>\n

The letter said there was a need to expand the capacity of Irish shipping ports in the aftermath of Britain\u2019s exit from the bloc. Trade between Rosslare and other European ports had increased fourfold in the last three years, it noted. <\/p>\n

\u201cSupport for the continued delivery of additional port capacity is essential to maintaining and strengthening trade and connectivity through Irish ports, to the benefit of the wider union.\u201d <\/p>\n

Irish projects secured more than \u20ac130 million in EU transport funding in recent years, a Department of Transport spokesman said. This included \u20ac73 million for works expanding the capacity of Dublin Port, a \u20ac38 million grant for infrastructure updates at the Port of Cork and \u20ac19 million for works in Rosslare Europort. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Dublin and Cork ports to receive more than \u20ac112m for infrastructure projectsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The two ministers said Ireland and Cyprus wanted to work with the commission to make sure the next EU budget addressed the \u201cspecific challenges\u201d facing island countries. The letter was released to The Irish Times on foot of a Freedom of Information Act request. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs maritime nations, we cannot overstate the crucial role of maritime transport in connecting Europe to global markets,\u201d Mr O\u2019Brien and his Cypriot counterpart said. <\/p>\n

They called for all parts of the union to be \u201cafforded appropriate consideration\u201d in future plans for improving transport links. <\/p>\n

Separately, officials from Ireland and other EU states who are net contributors to the union\u2019s budget met in Vienna on Thursday to discuss the commission\u2019s proposals. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland and Cyprus have appealed to the European Commission not to forget about island states when thinking about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[78414,8612,143064,2000,299,5187,2557],"class_list":{"0":"post-417657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-common-agricultural-policy-cap","9":"tag-cyprus","10":"tag-darragh-obrien","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-commission"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115189694071422952","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}