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WHEN IRELAND JOINED what was then the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973, the Irish punt was still linked to the British pound.
It was only later during that decade that the link was seriously questioned, with Ireland joining the European Monetary System at its inception in March 1979.
The UK stayed outside the system and Ireland went on to join the Euro. Not only did the UK not join the Euro, Brexit ultimately ended its membership completely.
The tale is an example of how Ireland and the UK’s journeys within the European Union started from a similar point before diverging dramatically.
Brexit has thrown up all manner of complex questions for Ireland, among them how Ireland’s EU alliances could change in the absence of our nearest neighbour.
There are other questions too, such as the extent to which Ireland will actually miss the UK as an ally and to whom the country may look to instead. As with most things Brexit-related, the answer to the first question is that it’s complicated.
The UK was an important EU ally to Ireland in certain areas but not so in others. The two had much in common in their strong support of trade and the single market but, when it came to agriculture, the two were almost diametrically opposed.
The Common Agricultural Policy, which for years was perhaps Ireland’s central concern, saw the country align much more closely with the likes of France.
During the 1990s, as London began to distance itself from Brussels, Ireland and the UK were also at different ends of the spectrum as the UK tried to rein in EU budget spending.
There was common ground of course, with the two countries often sharing a similar hesitancy to increased EU integration on defence. Ireland was keen to maintain its neutrality, with the UK suspicious of anything that might undermine its commitment to Nato.
More practically, joint membership of the EU also assisted with the improved UK-Ireland bilateral relationship that led to the Anglo-Irish Agreement and, of course, the Good Friday Agreement.
Rory Montgomery, a long-time diplomat and former Irish ambassador to the EU, says there are “many examples” of how Ireland and the UK working together at EU level helped their bilateral relationship.
First of all, it’s a question of politicians getting to know each other and establishing relationships, the most famous being Albert Reynolds and John Major, but there are many others as well. That’s the first point.Secondly, it meant that we had a common agenda. In other words, EU issues became a major part of a shared agenda, whether we agreed with each other fully or not. It means people having very substantive and meaningful talks about issues.And then thirdly, at the official levels people would establish all sorts of connections. In my time I would have dealt with various British opposite numbers who would have gone on elsewhere. The Permanent Secretary of Treasury at the moment, he was my opposite number for a point, the former British Ambassador to Washington, the deputy head of Bank of England, and even in fact the great David Frost and I were opposite numbers back in 2004. And you can multiply this many times across all departments and at different levels. So the point is these are human connections and contacts.
New alliances
In recent years, Ireland’s alliances across the EU have not so much shifted but have become more dynamic and been increasingly issue-dependent.
One European Commission official described Ireland’s approach to the building of alliances as being “pragmatic”, with the country aligning with others on a policy level rather than a nation state level.
In the context of the UK, the same official said that, even long before Brexit, the UK had been “turning itself into the black sheep of the EU” and that common interests with Ireland had been dwindling for many years.
Instead, Ireland has been attempting to align with the Nordic nations of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden on issues such as trade, education and culture.
The Nordic strategy is also evidenced by Ireland’s effort to gain observer on the Arctic Council, which also includes these countries.
Denmark in particular has frequently been cited as a naturally ally for Ireland, as Dr Kathryn Simpson of Manchester Metropolitan University explains:
The UK, Ireland and Denmark joined in that first wave of enlargement in 1973. Denmark has also had several ‘No’ votes to various EU referendums over the years, so has often been compared to Ireland in the past. But I think it’s also about trying to say, ‘right well, who is going to be our natural allies here?’, and I think that’s something the Irish government is still work trying to work out.
Ireland’s most important EU allies in recent years have perhaps been the ‘Benelux’ countries of Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg, with the latter two of particular note in joining Ireland in opposition to a proposed digital tax.
Ireland’s late-in-the-day decision to agree to global OECD corporate tax reforms also pointed to where its priorities lie, with Estonia and Hungary the only other EU member states who left it so late to sign up.
Big tech
Data and big tech is another area where Ireland has taken an active approach to building alliances to protect its interests.
All EU member states have just signed up to the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, which seek to increase oversight of big tech firms such as Facebook, Google and Apple.
The DSA attempts to clamp down on illegal content, while the DMA is an effort to increase competition in a field dominated by US multinationals.
As part of the agreements, each EU member state will continue to take the lead in policing the firms based in their own country, despite efforts from France to change this.
The EU’s long-held country-of-origin principle means that enforcement rules are handled by the national authority where a big company is based. France wanted other national regulators to be given greater power to intervene regardless of where a big tech firm is based.
It was reported this month that Ireland joined Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Slovakia and Sweden in successfully opposing France’s proposal.
Despite this small victory for Ireland and its allies, Montgomery believes issues around data and big tech will continue to be a sticking point for Ireland in the years to come.
“With any luck if the OECD deal holds it should, for the time being at least, remove quite a lot of the pressure we’ve been under – because there’s been very serious pressure for quite a long time now both on the corporation tax rate but also on the question of whether we’re facilitating digital companies to essentially avoid tax.”
He adds:
But over the period ahead there is the whole question of greater so-called “European strategic autonomy”, which essentially means building up European industries and being more open to taking protectionist measures against other countries. And I think potentially the way in which Europe approaches large US companies is going to be quite a flashpoint. Tax has been one of the big issues but it’s not the only issue and, especially when it comes to the digital economy, there are many concerns over data protection, the abuse on social media platforms and questions over anti-competitive practices. I think it’s quite likely that these will be the battlelines in periods ahead.
Brexit
If Ireland’s story within the EU was an opportunity for the country to increasingly demonstrate its autonomy from the UK, Brexit certainly hammered that message home.
Irish officials in Brussels say there are no positives from Brexit but it has at least put the country’s interests front and centre and demonstrated a cross-European unity in protecting them.
The ongoing debate over the Northern Ireland Protocol follows the mechanism formerly known as the backstop and the red line known as a hard border.
All of these Irish issues were given international prominence and have surely assisted in highlighting the negotiation skills of Irish diplomats. They have also shown that the country has determined allies in the ashes of Brexit.
Fine Gael MEP Frances Fitzgerald says she has been “struck again and again” by the level of understanding EU colleagues have shown but that it may be some time before Brexit is conclusively resolved.
“Somebody described the whole Brexit thing as being like an earthquake and we’re still in the aftershock period, so it’s going to take five to ten years for things to really settle down,” she says.
Brexit, the Protocol, Article 16 and not getting clarity and finishing the negotiations… when they’re all finished, we’re not going to get a calmness in the Ireland-UK relationship – it’s changed.
Simpson agrees and says the UK’s unsuccessful attempts to essentially “pit member states against one another” during early Brexit negotiations showed the strength of EU alliances and Ireland’s in particular.
“I think there would have been an expectation from the UK side in the initial stages of Brexit negotiations to kind of disunite the EU and try and pit member states off one another, and that has definitely not happened and still continues not to happen to this day. Even with current concerns over the Protocol; the EU is a bloc and it’s 27 and it’s firmly behind Ireland.”
This work is co-funded by Journal Media and a grant programme from the European Parliament. Any opinions or conclusions expressed in this work is the author’s own. The European Parliament has no involvement in nor responsibility for the editorial content published by the project. For more information, see here.
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France. Always have been. Always will be.
@Vonvonic: seriously?
@Thomas O’ Donnell: I would agree with Vonvonic. The alliance goes back to Norman-Ireland. A lot of the Normans that settled in Ireland would have classed themselves as more French than English.
@Vonvonic: I would agree you only have to look at the Wolfe Tone connection
@Patrick Corr: it was at Fontenoy that the cry was heard, while charging at the British in the decisive rout by the Irish Brigade, Remember Limerick and Saxon Perfidy.
@Vonvonic: Bien sûr mon ami!
It has to be said that Irelands department of foreign affairs have done a great job over the past few years with the UN Security Council, the observer statuses, etc., but the reality is Ireland has lost our biggest ally in the EU now that the UK has gone and there are a few countries who have their eyes on several of Irelands laws and policies that they will target and not for Irelands benefit. The commenters on this site are 90% anti UK, and definitely anti everything the government does, so it’s not the best comment section to get a decent POV but it would be good to see if Irish people, in general, are aware of where we stand in the EU today
@Local Ore: The article addresses this, we build alliances on a policy basis rather than being wedded to any particular one on all things. This is a highly beneficial approach that creates political capital. The divergence of Ireland and the UK within the EU has been going on so long that when it they did leave, it impacted us far less than many expected. We are well able to plough our own furrow and protect our own interests, while keeping a pragmatic and flexible position in a fast changing world. We are also now the only EU member State with english as a first language. If we weren’t doing so well already, I’d go so far as to say that the UK’s act of self-isolation will be the making of Ireland.
@Eoin Roche: Ireland’s economic success is completely due to FDI. It was 288% of GDP in 2019. The UK accounts for far more of FDI than any EU country. In terms of exports, The US and The UK account for 41% of Irelands exports, France accounts for 4%… I mention this because France competes with Ireland far, far more than people think and they intend to target Irelands FDI, I have members of my team supporting French Public Sector bodies right now reviewing EU policies on how to target the €1Trn FDI Ireland gets. Think of the size of France, we import about €13bn from them, they import about €5bn from us. France and Germany plan to strengthen their ties and “leadership” (control) of the EU over the coming years, this isn’t to support “the making of Ireland”, it’s to grow themselves
@Eoin Roche: Dublin is now an outlier in an EU where reliance on foreign multinationals will no longer be ignored. These companies now account for 32 percent of all jobs in Ireland and 49 percent of employment taxes. 75 percent of recent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Ireland either comes from the U.S. (58 percent) or the U.K. (17 percent). By contrast, just 5 percent comes from Germany. Dublins Economic Model is the talking point of EU policymakers, as I mentioned, and we are already seeing it – harmonised corporation tax. Next will be FDI policy and they are already drawing it up to try to “harmonise” it toward other EU countries.
@Eoin Roche: Correction: Malta has English as a first language.
@Nick Caffrey: Correction: Maltese is the 1st language in Malta, English is 2nd and also an official language
@Local Ore: You are failing to differentiate between US FDI and UK FDI. The US is by far more important than the UK to us, no comparison. Why do you conflate two wildly different countries/economies?
@Leo Sharkey: I’m not conflating them in any way, I’m pointing out that Irelands largest investment, and trade, comes from outside the EU and was heavily protected by the UK supporting Ireland on policy and vice-versa. I’ve seen people on this site say France and Germany are major allies/supporters of Ireland and I wonder if it’s total lack of knowledge, deliberate ignorance or just the anti-UK sentiment of most of the commenters. Only in Ireland do people think Ireland is better off in the EU without the UK… it goes against all logic and facts. The EU is a body of consultation and common action between states, underpinned by legal and institutional arrangements. These arrangements are evolving in response to needs as they arise and France and Germany’s needs to do not align to Irelands.
France and Germany have supported us throughout the whole Brexit process and NI protocol . If they wavered in their support for us, the British would sense an opportunity and end up causing trouble in Northern Ireland.
We are more aligned with our Nordic blood brothers and france than any of the other countries in europe.
It is worth recalling that the old British policy of DIVIDE AND CONQUER failed when they attempted to disunite the EU approach to recent events.
It’s a right tough one, not Portugal or Spain because of the amount that go there on holiday, they know what we are like when let out. Not the French as they’ve always tried to help us but end up making a balls out of it and then think it’s our fault. Not Poland, they know what we’re like too from half of them being here at one stage. It wont be the Italians either as the blue shirts have given Mussolini’s black shirts a bad name! I’ll run out of characters soon so I’m sure others can fill in the blanks, who haven’t we pissed off?
@This time its personable!: Did you read the article? The Scandinavian and Benelux countries are our natural allies in Europe.
@JustMeHere: I did boy, I didn’t include them there I was pointing out the additional reasons why the others aren’t too for caring about us!
I would argue that Angela Merkel and Germany have been our quiet allies for 20 years, France, the Baltic, and Benelux states, but generally speaking we have good relationships with all our EU colleagues.
@Leo Sharkey: I literally work in this area of the public sector and can tell by this comment that you most definitely do not. France has been attacking Irelands tax and FDI for my entire career, the “Dublin Economy” drives them mad in Brussels. The Netherlands directly competes, and wins, in financial services with Ireland. Ireland has a deregulated, highly flexible global economy that lacks the comprehensive social protections of continental counterparts such as the Netherlands or Denmark, the model stands in stark contrast to the centralism unleashed from the Elysée. The countries you mention are highly focused on corporate and digital taxation, data protection and the further centralization of the eurozone – all massively damaging and contrasting to the Irish model.
Henry 8th’s break was the same mentality as Brexit. A difference is that Boris will not be confiscating assets of Europeans and calling it a reformation.
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