EU leaders will gather for a special summit near Brussels on Monday to plan a new era in the EU’s approach to defence and security against the backdrop of growing apprehension about the Trump administration’s attitude to Europe’s security.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin will attend his first meeting of European leaders since his re-election as Taoiseach and is expected to signal to EU leaders that Ireland is rapidly increasing defence spending and recognises the need to co-operate on defence of sub-sea cables.
His assurances to his fellow EU leaders – and to the Nato chief and the British prime minister Keir Starmer, who will also drop by – come as questions about Ireland’s attitude to defence and its willingness to play its part in ensuring the common security of the EU are increasingly aired in European capitals spooked by Donald Trump’s apparent attitude to Europe’s defence: that it’s a matter for Europeans to worry about.
Trump’s departure from US norms – warning about ending 80 years of the US security guarantee – as well as his threatening noises towards Greenland, the territory of Nato and EU member Denmark, mean there is less tolerance for Ireland’s traditional position on defence issues, according to officials, academics and observers.
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John O’Brennan, Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration at Maynooth University, says many policymakers in the EU are in a state of “disbelief” about Ireland’s position on defence.
Speaking from Latvia, where he is meeting academics and politicians for discussions on the issue, O’Brennan stresses how the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 changed the game for most EU countries on security and defence policy, especially among eastern and central European states.
“Because security is now so important after the invasion, and because we have done so little, there’s just a bafflement about it that we don’t take it seriously,” he says.
Recent comments by President Michael D Higgins, where he criticised Nato countries for increasing investment in their militaries, were widely reported in Europe. Many senior Irish officials regard Higgins’s public positions on defence and security issues – which they point out are no business of the non-executive President, rather matters for the elected Government – as significantly damaging for Ireland with the EU and the US. Few of the EU leaders gathering on Monday will be unaware of them, officials say.Though they will, undoubtedly, have bigger fish to try. In his letter to EU leaders inviting them to Monday’s summit, the president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, told them their discussion should be based on two principles: “First, Europe needs to assume greater responsibility for its own defence ... Second, member states will always be responsible for their armed forces. At the same time, we have a common interest in co-operating more closely at European level.”
The Taoiseach, it is understood, will indicate no difficulties with either of these principles. Indeed, he is likely to stress that Ireland will play its part, while at the same time being careful to nod to Ireland’s traditional neutrality.
Though Irish neutrality retains widespread public support, it has tended to mean in practice whatever the government of the day wanted it to mean. Pro-neutrality campaigners, many on the political left, have been warning that Irish neutrality has been threatened since the country joined the EEC; but since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it has been under pressure at home and under scrutiny abroad.
What is certainly true is that Ireland is planning a significant increase in defence spending and capabilities in the coming years. Documents prepared to brief the incoming Minister for Defence, Simon Harris, show that a pivot on defence is already under way, partly in response to the changed mood in Europe.
“European defence is therefore increasingly viewed as vital to Europe’s existential security, with many member states calling for a strategic paradigm shift in the EU’s defence approach and priorities,” officials wrote. “Many of our EU partners, particularly the Nordics and the Baltics, are in full war preparation mode.”
The briefing notes outline how the new security environment is already putting pressure on Ireland’s position.
“This is the challenging context facing Ireland in terms of our engagement with the EU on defence matters,” it says.
“Hitherto this, Ireland’s position, and those of other militarily neutral states, has been accepted. However, the changing geopolitical climate, the accession of the previously militarily neutral states of Finland and Sweden into Nato, and the resulting increased focus on defence industry and wider defence matters will likely result in a lower tolerance or understanding of this position into the future.”
EU countries do not expect Ireland to become a military power. But they increasingly expect it to play a role at EU level. As the briefing documents point out, Ireland will play an important role in the emerging defence strategy during its six-month EU presidency next year.
“The timing of the Irish presidency is at a key moment in negotiations on the next EU budget ... and there will likely be a considerable focus on defence initiative.” Managing the presidency while maintaining understanding of Ireland’s neutrality, it says, will “require a delicate and nuanced approach”.
More immediately, EU partners will also expect the Government to step up to mind the critical infrastructure that runs through Irish waters: the undersea internet cables that carry most of the internet traffic between the US and Europe. There have been several attacks on such cables in the Baltic Sea lately, presumed to be the work of Russian agents. In November, a Russian surveillance vessel, the Yantar, was observed in Irish waters near the site of several such cables.
Last year, the Government took part in a conference with Iceland about protecting the cables and the Department of Defence is preparing a national maritime security strategy. The strategy will make clear that “protecting this infrastructure requires both collaboration within a State, together with collaboration between States to have a full understanding of what is occurring in the maritime space.”
But at present, Ireland’s ability to effectively monitor and defend its airspace and waters is more or less non-existent. And everybody knows it.
“It’s one thing to say we’re not going to manage our own defence,” says Ben Tonra, professor of international relations at UCD. “But it’s another thing to say to our partners that we’re going to create a problem for your defence.”
Security and defence, Tonra says, are now “absolutely central” to the EU and if Ireland tries to avoid participation in those areas, it will inevitably marginalise itself.
But plans to play a more active role in the EU’s defence will be met with stiff opposition; they always are.
“A neutral state shouldn’t be having talks about defence with other countries,” says Roger Cole, chairman of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance. “It’s a denial that Ireland is a neutral state.”
“It’s a worrying signal that the Government intends to move towards the whole project of EU militarisation,” says Richard Boyd Barrett, the People Before Profit TD and long-time campaigner on neutrality issues. “As geopolitical tensions are being ramped up, it’s more important than ever to maintain our neutrality.”
For O’Brennan, however, Ireland is “the ostrich of Europe”, burying its head in the sand while the signs of danger increase all around it.
“We are refusing to take responsibility for our own defence. And that’s being noticed much more around Europe.”
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