Ireland facing policy choices

“We have to assure our citizens that we have learned the lessons of Brexit and we are able to bring back stability and a sense of security and effective protection.” European Council president Donald Tusk’s candid message to the European Union’s summit in Bratislava yesterday urgently underlined the need to convince ordinary citizens that their leaders can indeed restore trust and stability. Political leaders took up the challenge by prioritising security issues after the last year’s crises over migration, refugees, terrorism and economic instability. They aim to take concrete actions in all these areas over coming months.

This was an informal one-day meeting to take stock of that demanding agenda rather than to take major decisions. They have identified the biggest issues and know they need to demonstrate their capacity to act. It is not a time for large treaty change or grand bargains because of political disagreements that run from north to south on economic questions and from east to west on migration and refugees.

Forthcoming elections in Austria, the Netherlands, France and Germany further constrain ambitious initiatives. And yet Tusk is quite correct to underline it would be fatal to see Brexit as purely a UK matter, since similar fears about globalisation affect citizens all over the EU. The fact that leaders met without the British prime minister symbolises the shadow of that decision over the EU’s future.

Security is an understandable and justified theme arising from these events and Tusk’s recent consultations in his role as head of the European Council. That body has moved more to the centre stage compared to the European Commission and other EU institutions. France and Germany are making the running on border controls, migration and counterterrorism and linking these to closer defence co-operation. Drawing on and amplifying existing policies and commitments, current leaders of the two countries have ample domestic political reasons to take collective action on them at European level. It reflects their conviction that, for the moment, a better Europe is preferable to more Europe, a sentiment that chimes with Tusk’s concern that the several overlapping crises have “weakened citizens’ trust in their governments, the institutions and the wider establishment”.

From Ireland’s point of view it is a difficult time of transition, reconfiguration and choice on European policy. The Government has effectively communicated Ireland’s vital concerns over Brexit to its EU partners. The commission’s Apple ruling puts it on the defensive on tax policy. The emphasis on security and defence adds a new dimension that demands more political engagement with the public on what it means for Ireland’s neutral stance.