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Interview by Dan Cărbunaru, edited by Andreea Radu
In an interview with CaleaEuropeană.ro, Ireland’s Minister of State for European Affairs and Defense, Thomas Byrne, emphasized the importance of strengthening competitiveness, European values, and security and defense as key priorities for Ireland’s upcoming presidency of the Council of the EU. The Irish official highlighted the role of the transatlantic relationship, cooperation within NATO, and dialogue between the EU and the Alliance in Europe’s security architecture, while also emphasizing Ireland’s neutral position and its role as a mediator between member states.
Thomas Byrne also spoke about the EU’s role in the global economy, emphasizing the importance of market diversification and trade agreements with strategic partners such as India and the Mercosur countries. He praised the European Commission’s efforts in the field of trade and highlighted the opportunities created for European companies, particularly in the context of strengthening the EU’s competitiveness.
Byrne also reaffirmed Ireland’s strong support for the EU enlargement process, with a focus on the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, and the Western Balkans, considering that enlargement is essential for the security and stability of the continent. At the same time, Byrne highlighted the importance of cooperation in the field of health, combating misinformation about vaccines, and strengthening European capacities in the pharmaceutical sector, as well as Ireland’s support for Romania’s accession to the OECD and for the development of bilateral relations between the two countries.
CaleaEuropeană.ro: We are talking with His Excellency Thomas Byrne, Minister of State for European Affairs and Defense of Ireland. Your Excellency, your country is preparing for the process of assuming the presidency of the EU Council. So, to begin with, welcome to Romania, and please let us know what the main priorities you intend to focus on are.
Thomas Byrne: Well, thank you very much. I’m glad to be here in Romania. I’m visiting all the capitals before our presidency. That’s certainly my ambition: to engage with my counterparts, in this case Clara Steicu, but also to hear from MPs and other interested people about our priorities, because we’re still considering them. But, broadly speaking, I see them falling into three categories. One would be competitiveness. The second category would be our values and principles as Europeans. And the third category is security and defense. So, broadly, that’s where they fit in, but there’s still a lot of work going on in relation to that.
CaleaEuropeană.ro: Security issues in Europe these days seem almost dramatic, due to the situation on the eastern border and the transatlantic relationship. So, how do you see the architecture of security in Europe in such a context
Thomas Byrne: Well, I think it has a number of facets. For those member states that are part of NATO, NATO is obviously, I suppose, the fundamental foundation of their security. And Ireland, though not a member of NATO, sees NATO as very important for those countries that are part of it, but also sees relations between the EU and NATO as very important.
I can’t say from a security and defense point of view, while from an EU point of view, I suppose it goes back to member states and their own competence on defense. I think, as presidency, we would see ourselves as an honest broker, working to ensure that we can fulfil the, I suppose, combined consensus of the member states around security and defense, even though that would be different from our own approach, which is not militarily aligned.
We want to be able to help member states achieve their ambitions, whether that’s more cooperation between EU member states or more access to resourcing arrangements as well. We want to be there to be able to support that.
CaleaEuropeană.ro: If we take a look at the transatlantic relationship, which is a key issue not only for our shared values, but also for commercial purposes and, of course, the defense situation, which is your country’s position on it?
Thomas Byrne: We very strongly support a strong transatlantic relationship. We don’t have a defense relationship with the USA, but we have huge people-to-people relationships. Forty million people in the US claim Irish ancestry. We have a huge trading relationship in both directions with the USA. US companies are big investors in Ireland, and Irish companies are big investors in the USA. For example, Ryanair is the largest non-American purchaser of Boeing planes, an Irish company.
So, we see the transatlantic relationship as very important. At the end of the day, America has been one of the prestigious democracies in the world for a long time. Despite uncertainties in the relationship and its ups and downs, I am convinced that the relationship between the EU and the US, and between Ireland and the US, is really fundamental. And it is something that we will work to promote.
We certainly have a lot of engagements with the US as an Irish government. We always do that on behalf of Ireland, but also as part of Team Europe.
CaleaEuropeană.ro: What about the trade agreement with the US? We know about the issue generated in the European Parliament regarding sending the Mercosur trade agreement to the Court.
Thomas Byrne: Mercosur has been approved by the Member States. The European Parliament has sent it to the Court of Justice. The European Commission has to make a decision in relation to it. So, we’ll see what they do.
CaleaEuropeană.ro: But still, we have two recent agreements, huge agreements with Mercosur and now with India. How do you see Europe’s role on the global scale in terms of commerce and competitiveness?
Thomas Byrne: I think diversifying our markets is very, very important. I think the India trade deal is very important. I think it’s just so important to open up our markets to a diversity of countries. From an Irish point of view, we see Britain doing a number of trade deals. And if the EU isn’t doing them, it puts us at a competitive disadvantage compared to Britain.
So, that’s not happening. I would say that our Commissioner for Trade, Maroš Šefčovič, has negotiated a fantastic agreement with India, which maintains the EU’s strong competitive position. I think there are huge opportunities there for Irish and many other European companies.
CaleaEuropeană.ro: I would like to talk a little bit about a very important topic for Europe, but especially for Romania, as we are presenting this position to the Romanian public. What is your country’s position on the enlargement process? I am talking here about Moldova, Ukraine, and the Western Balkans.
Thomas Byrne: We see enlargement as very, very important. We have marked it down as one of our top priorities. Our Prime Minister has said that he wants us to push through enlargement files as best as we can. I have already visited Moldova. I hope to visit Moldova again very, very soon. And we certainly want to see Moldova and Ukraine as part of the European Union. I think that is important, not just for them economically and socially, but actually for our security as well. I think it is an important imperative. When you think about the Western Balkans, it is simply a fact that Montenegro is quite far ahead in the accession process, followed by Albania. They have a lot of work to do, and we certainly want to finalise it.
I think we can finalise the Montenegrin accession chapters and clusters this year, and then hopefully they will join subsequently. But we will work to pursue enlargement very, very strongly.
If you remember back to our 2004 Presidency, ten countries joined the EU during our Presidency and Romania concluded the membership negotiations that year, joining the EU in 2007. We call that day the “Day of Welcomes,” when the new member states joined. It still shines in the Irish collective memory, so that is why we see enlargement as important.
We benefit ourselves from EU membership and want to ensure that those benefits can be extended to people in the EU as well.
CaleaEuropeană.ro: Actually, I do remember that at the beginning, almost 20 years ago, we were looking at the example of Ireland as an example of success in terms of projecting our future in Europe, which in the meantime has also become our present. Sir, I know that maybe this is not exactly the topic, like entering the OECD, but it is very important for Romania. As far as I know, you are a founding member state. For us, for Calea Europeană, it is one of the topics that we are focusing on, because it is actually expanding our way of improving the governance system.
Thomas Byrne: Yes, we fully support what Romania is doing and Romania’s accession to the OECD. Certainly, we work with the Romanian government in relation to that. Sure. Well, they are very helpful. I mean, being part of the OECD is certainly very helpful, because we find that the research is still there, the work is still there. It just helps us to be a better society, really. More resilient as an economy. You have our full support.
CaleaEuropeană.ro: And we are very close to finishing this process in August this year. So, you have our full support. Thank you so much, sir. We still have at least five minutes. So, may we talk a little bit about bilateral relations with Romania? Would you like to present your vision and your plans for them?
Thomas Byrne: We have a huge number of Romanians in Ireland, a very active Irish embassy here in Bucharest, and a very active Romanian embassy in Ireland. So, both ambassadors are very active.
Well, again, you can see that there is an Irish population here in Romania. It is not huge, but there is a very significant Romanian population in Ireland, and we see that at election time.
We also see that it is a community that has integrated very, very well and has done very well. In fact, in my own office, I had a staff member at one point who was Irish, but whose parents were Romanian, and I think that this is a community that has done very, very well. We see various areas for cooperation in the bilateral relationship. I think trade, people-to-people contacts, and some aspects of defense as well are important, and we want those relations to go from strength to strength.
CaleaEuropeană.ro: Would you like to talk a little bit about defense? I am talking here about SAFE, and also about the fact that the European Commission will lay out a security strategy for Europe this year.
Thomas Byrne: Yeah, well, look, the SAFE mechanism, I think, has been very, very welcome. And notwithstanding that Ireland has not taken part in the SAFE loans and that we do not need adjustments to the borrowing rules, we have been very, very supportive of the entire process. I think that is very important, because sometimes, because we are a neutral country or because we are not part of a military alliance, people think that maybe Ireland is going to object to this, because we have the power of veto at the Council on these issues. But that is not the space we see for ourselves. On the contrary, the space we see for ourselves, as I said earlier, is facilitating the desires of the member states.
I think what we need, in terms of our own security from an EU point of view, is more cooperation between member states, more common procurement, procurement within the European Union, and building up the capacities that we have within the European Union to produce for the European member states.
I think that is where we can do a lot. And if you look towards the next multi-annual financial framework that we are negotiating at the moment, I think there is a lot the European Union can do in terms of, for example, military mobility, to make sure that we have roads, bridges, and airports that can do the job for us. These have military purposes but also, of course, predominantly civilian uses, in terms of having a good road network. So, I think we need to do that.
I think, in terms of our own security as well, as I said, enlargement is absolutely central to that. I think we cannot have a Ukraine that is forever outside the European Union. I think Ukraine has to be in the European Union. It is right for the people, and for Moldova as well, but also right for our security against Russia.
I think it gives us, as Europeans already within the European Union, a much greater level of security if these countries are brought into the EU through the enlargement process.
CaleaEuropeană.ro: And my last question is: after COVID, all Europeans discovered the importance of putting together our efforts to improve the healthcare system, and we have the pharma package, which is close to an end. Would you like to develop a little bit on it?
Thomas Byrne: The pharma package is dealt with primarily by my colleague, the Minister for Health, but I think there is a lot we can do in terms of health. Yes, health is a national competence, but our view is that we have had some health issues. My Prime Minister was Minister for Health in the early 2000s, during a number of pan-European health incidents, and he felt that the world we were in during COVID, from an EU point of view, was completely different from the early 2000s in terms of the coordination that was possible.
I think that, through the vaccination programme at the time, we were able to show what could be done and how we could work together. I think it is important that the European Union sticks together in terms of, first of all, encouraging pharma to be developed, manufactured, and researched within the European Union, but also to make sure that it is available at a reasonable price for citizens, because it is important that these benefits are accessible. I think our strength lies in working together on these issues. I think we have so much more power when working together.
I think there is a lot we need to do in terms of vaccine misinformation as well, and that is also an education issue that we could all benefit from.
The post INTERVIEW | Ireland’s Minister of State for European Affairs and Defense: Competitiveness, European values, security, and defense are the key priorities of Ireland’s upcoming EU Council Presidency appeared first on caleaeuropeana.ro.