{"id":987351,"date":"2026-05-27T05:09:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T05:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/987351\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T05:09:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T05:09:22","slug":"such-a-pity-fuel-protests-forced-group-of-ministerial-advisers-to-scrap-trip-to-brussels-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/987351\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Such a pity\u2019: Fuel protests forced group of ministerial advisers to scrap trip to Brussels \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A trip arranged for 22 Government advisers to Brussels for briefings from top officials before Ireland takes on the European Union<\/a> presidency had to be cancelled last month, after nearly all of the ministerial aides pulled out due to the fuel protests<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Internal documents show the wheels came off a planned two-day visit bringing the group of advisers around the EU institutions, as the Government scrambled to quell protests blocking key motorways and roads.<\/p>\n

The trip was arranged and paid for by the European Commission\u2019s office in Ireland, to help prepare Government advisers for the upcoming EU presidency. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe objective of the visit is to gain a good overview of how things work in Brussels and to enable participants to develop their networks,\u201d Peter Power, the head of EU executive\u2019s Irish office wrote in a letter to Ministers. <\/p>\n

\u201cParticipants will have the opportunity to meet with senior interlocutors in the European Commission, Council and European Parliament,\u201d the January 22nd letter said. <\/p>\n

Ireland will assume the rotating presidency<\/a> of the council of the European Union for the second half of this year in July. The council represents the 27 national governments in the Brussels system, and country holding the presidency is responsible for chairing policy debates and negotiating compromises. <\/p>\n

Ministerial advisers were due to be briefed by several of commission president Ursula von der Leyen<\/a>\u2019s team, and other senior officials and diplomats working across the EU institutions. The group of Irish advisers were to travel to Brussels on April 13th and return to Dublin on April 15th. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ministers bringing it all back home with EU meetingsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Escalating protests over the steep cost of fuel, which blocked roads and key infrastructure, forced several advisers to pull out of the planned trip, as the Government pulled together a \u20ac750 million fuel support package the weekend beforehand. <\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, due to the current situation with the fuel protests, we have had a number of advisers drop out today. Fingers crossed that there will be a speedy resolution,\u201d a commission official flagged to Brussels-based Irish diplomats in an April 10th email. <\/p>\n

Internal emails show the commission\u2019s Irish office was later forced to scrap the trip entirely, the day advisers were due to jet out. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have just taken the decision to cancel the visit to Brussels. 18 of 22 participants were no longer available to participate due to the current political situation,\u201d an EU official wrote in an April 13th email, released under the Freedom of Information Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it couldn\u2019t be helped but I am really so sorry to hear this … It\u2019s such a pity,\u201d a senior Irish diplomat said in response. <\/p>\n

A spokesman for the commission said there were no plans to reschedule the trip given there was only a few weeks before the start of Ireland\u2019s EU presidency. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A trip arranged for 22 Government advisers to Brussels for briefings from top officials before Ireland takes on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,1699,249686,1220],"class_list":["post-987351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-fuel-protests","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987351","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=987351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=987351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=987351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=987351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}