Professor Brigid Laffan:

Regarding Ireland and security and the agenda, the Cathaoirleach is absolutely correct. Seán Lemass was very clear in the early 1960s that if defence became an EU competence, Ireland would be a fully-paid member of that. I think that lasted for a very long time. Ireland did not have to confront the security dimension of European integration acutely because security remained contested and limited in the EU as long as NATO was there and was stable. Now, we are in a different period with regard to industrial policy, the defence industries in Europe, the hybrid threats we discussed today and ensuring there is a strong European pillar of NATO, all of which revert to the EU either formally or in reality. In other words, it is the EU member states that will do it. In Ireland, because we did not have to confront it, there was a complacency about security and, as we are a small state in a benign security environment, relatively speaking, there was a sense that we were peaceful and were better than countries that saw their security through American-dominated NATO. In fact, we were just lucky. In class, I always tell my students to think of Ireland as being in the middle of the North Sea and what security policy we would have if we were on the other side of the island, as opposed to this side. In other words, it is the luck of geography. There is also a strong pro-neutrality strain in Irish society. I do not envisage Ireland becoming a NATO state but I think Ireland must look to its security and situate that in the wider European dynamic. We cannot, in the next phase, pretend that security is someone else's problem. A lot of work needs to be done in that regard.

On dynamics within the EU and the centre of gravity, the war inevitably pulled it east because that is where the security challenge and the war are. Poland has emerged as the leading pro-Ukraine country in the EU. I was struck just in the last 24 or 48 hours by President Zelenskyy's visits to Germany, France and the UK. Germany will now ratchet up its support for Ukraine. It has been a difficult internal battle in the coalition in Berlin but also for German society rightly because of the memory of the war. I am not so sure the shift will be on everything but I think the war is the coming-of-age of the so-called new member states. They are no longer new member states or in transition, they are fully-fledged member states. It is important to note that they did not do so well on grain because once it threatened their domestic agriculture, they began to kick back. On the Franco-German relationship, it is undergoing a difficult phase at the moment but never underestimate their ability, on some things, to solve their differences. Major developments in the EU cannot be done against Berlin and Paris, they must be done with them, irrespective of the extent to which they lead or not. Another important development I noticed is that the Commission is becoming, particularly in President Von der Leyen, much more comfortable making big foreign policy statements. Her China address in the third week of March was a case in point, in which she basically mapped out an EU response to China. As we know, she went to Beijing with President Macron and they were not exactly on the same page. There is almost a sense that Europe has to make choices about the kind of actor it is in the international system now; the functional pressures are strong. The alternative is you become the Borrell thing, you are a plaything for all the other great powers.

Ireland needs to encompass development in the High Arctic in its foreign policy. We have strengthened our relationship with small states such as the Netherlands, the Hansestadt, but we should always examine development more broadly in the EU and not lock ourselves into any one group of countries. It was interesting that on the Recovery and Resilience Fund, Ireland did not go with the frugal, which I think was smart politics. I do not feel I know enough about the possibilities for us in the High Arctic institutionally but we should absolutely not ignore it, particularly as it comes into play more now and in the future.