Ireland took up the mantle of EU Presidency on July 1st, a duty it will hold for 6 months. Careful to chime with the mood of Brussels, the Irish Government has emphasised that ‘competitiveness, security and values’ will be prioritised under its stewardship.
Indeed, Ireland’s EU presidency comes at a critical moment for the bloc's strategic economic and technological direction. The EU remains on tentative footing since the financial crisis of 2008. Austerity packages shifted losses of massively overleveraged private banks onto public balance sheets, stabilising national economies at the expense of social protections and public services. This played no small part in undercutting the social pillars of the bloc’s productive base. The aftershocks of this socio-economic contraction - the most severe since the collapse of the USSR- have determined that the EU’s growth remains sluggish at best.
Further complications continue to gather as Asian economies, now able to balance the circulation of raw materials with the production of state-of-the-art technologies, limit the EU’s export opportunities. Think, for instance, of the Chinese economy racing ahead with electric vehicles or Taiwan’s highly efficient production capacity of semiconductors. Meanwhile, the US has become an increasingly erratic trading partner that constantly moves the goalposts on tariffs, to say nothing of its implicit military aggression.
The broad prescription for negotiating these challenges can be found in One Europe, One Market, the EU’s recent roadmap for adjusting to an altered geostrategic landscape. One Europe, One Market predates the Irish presidency, but it will serve as a guiding apparatus for member state discussions the Irish Government will lead over the next 6 months.
Central to One Europe, One Market is a promise to institute cost-saving measures worth €37.5 billion to businesses in Europe. The roadmap’s website and core document are notably thin, offering minimal detail. Through the emphasis placed on ‘Excessive regulation is a barrier to growth’, we can get a rough idea of the direction of travel, especially when considering the supporting references to advancing the competitiveness of the banking sector and deepening capital markets. There are, however, elements that civil society organisations may welcome, such as commitments to decarbonise, reduce energy prices, and enhance oversight of the tech sector.
When it comes to establishing firmer regulatory frameworks for monopoly tech, particularly as it relates to its AI products, the EU is seeking to tighten oversight of large US firms and guard against overarching monopolies. This aligns with its legislative push to ‘mitigate the risks stemming from the EU’s reliance on third countries for cloud computing services’, which, again, will disproportionately affect large US entities, for instance, Microsoft.
Along with shaping new regulatory environments for tech, tax reform will continue to be another substantial element of the One Europe, One Market roadmap pushed forward during the course of Ireland’s EU presidency. Ireland, though, has an uninspiring record of approaching areas of tax and tech regulation with full integrity. An intervention earlier this month by 60 high-profile academics sought to emphasise Ireland’s historic lightness of touch in playing by the rules of tech and tax regulatory enforcement. The academics, both employed by notable Irish and global institutions, published a letter requesting Ireland recuse itself from leading negotiations on either tax or tech regulation for the duration of its EU Presidency. To add further embarrassment to the Irish Government, The Financial Times devoted space for the letter in its entirety.
As the letter notes, ‘Google, Meta, Apple, Microsoft, OpenAI, TikTok, and X all selected Ireland to be the location of their EU headquarters. This turned the Irish Data Protection Commission into the primary data watchdog for the EU.’ It continues to note that such ‘responsibility has not been matched by effective enforcement.’ Flagging, by way of example, a legal battle initiated by the Irish Government in 2023, in which it attempted to sue all other EU data regulatory bodies in the hope of stalling a mandate which had directed it to ‘investigate Meta’s use of people’s most intimate data.’ And adding reference to Ireland’s landmark battle with the European Commission, in which the Irish Government fought against collecting taxes from Apple, despite the Commission deeming the US multinational owed at least €13 billion plus interest to Revenue.
One of the letter’s signatories is Dr. Nessa Ní Chasaide of Maynooth University, formerly the Coordinator of Financial Justice Ireland (then the Debt and Development Coalition).
When we spoke to Nessa Ní Chasaide about the significance of the letter, she told us that, “The letter reflects an important, united stand by scholars of tax and tech around the world. We are collectively expressing concern about Ireland’s compromised position within the EU on these issues. While Ireland is certainly not the only problematic actor within the EU on global tax reform, Ireland has a track record of being a ‘hold out’ EU state, such as in relation to the global minimum tax for example. Ireland is a huge beneficiary of corporate tax avoidance by large US firms. This must be made clear in relation to its chairing role during the EU presidency.”
For years, Nessa Ní Chasaide has been an astute and principled voice on matters of tax justice and the Irish economic model. Her published work and ability to easily communicate complex policy details toward a principled vision of justice continue to be a source of motivation for all of us at Financial Justice Ireland and across our networks. We share her concerns about Ireland’s steering of the EU Presidency; more attention - and critical conversations - must be brought to bear on a presidency steered by a government whose conflicted interests could jeopardise really meaningful reforms at a critical juncture for the European Union’s future.
48 hours after the letter was published, a story broke in The Irish Independent. It did little to allay the concerns presented by Dr. Nessa Ní Chasaide and her colleagues. Documents sought by journalist Sarah Collins reveal that Enterprise Minister Peter Burke dined with Meta’s executives at the US ambassador’s home in February. The purpose of the dinner, as a spokesperson for the US ambassador has confirmed, was to preemptively organise against EU moves toward digital regulation during Ireland’s Presidency.
Over the coming months, Ireland’s claim to be an honest broker will be judged not by its rhetoric about European values, but by whose interests it ultimately chooses to defend.
