Taoiseach Micheál Martin has been making a point of telling his Cabinet colleagues to get to know their opposite numbers in the European Union’s other 26 governments.
Ireland will take over the rotating “presidency” of the council of the EU next July, a pivotal role that involves brokering compromises between national capitals to maintain momentum in European policymaking.
During the six-month presidency, Irish Ministers will take centre stage in European affairs, chairing council meetings where all 27 member states negotiate and forge common positions on key issues.
Preparation has really stepped up in the last few months. There has been a noticeable increase in Ministers attending EU council meetings, in Brussels and elsewhere, rather than relying on senior Irish diplomats to represent them. Some have better attendance records than others, however.
Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport Patrick O’Donovan was due in Luxembourg for one such meeting last June, to talk about telecommunications policy with his counterparts from the union’s other governments.
Officials in O’Donovan’s department were keen to lock him down for the Council of Ministers huddle.
Civil servants got their request in early, asking if the Fine Gael Minister would be able to attend the EU meeting two months beforehand, internal emails show.
“We will ask the Minister and revert,” came the March 31st response from his office.
Internal correspondence released to The Irish Times under the Freedom of Information Act shows department officials followed up with the Minister’s office three times in April, but got no commitment.
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“We look forward to seeing you in Luxembourg and encourage you to actively intervene in the spirit of shaping the digital future of Europe,” the formal letter inviting O’Donovan to the June 6th meeting read.
Inside the department, officials said they wanted to arrange some bilateral sit-downs for O’Donovan on the margins of the Luxembourg trip. That would give him a chance to build up a bit of rapport with politicians and other important figures in the EU circuit, connections that could come in handy during Ireland’s stint holding the presidency.
The tone began to get exasperated in a further, May 7th email. “The telco formal council in Luxembourg is now less than a month away. Can you get back to us urgently regarding the Minister’s attendance,” department officials wrote.
“Unfortunately the Minister will be unable to travel to Luxembourg for the formal council. The Minister wishes to convey his apologies,” came the response from his office on May 8th.
O’Donovan was instead heading stateside for a four-day trade mission in California.
The trip saw him meet Netflix, NBC, Sony and Disney executives, according to an internal itinerary.
There was also a tour of Warner Bros Studios in Hollywood, where the culture Minister had a go at sitting under the sorting hat from the Harry Potter films.
Internal emails show O’Donovan’s trip to LA was in the works since April, though the final go-ahead was only given the day after he turned down the invite to Luxembourg.
“The aim of the trade mission was to continue to strengthen the Irish creative screen industry’s relationships with US studios, streaming companies and production companies,” a department spokesman said.
O’Donovan used the opportunity to tell US executives he had decided against introducing a levy on Netflix and other streaming services. The proposal had been on the table for a while, as a way to raise money to fund independent Irish TV productions.
The Minister came out against the levy earlier this year, arguing that people were already paying enough between their television licence and the cost of the streaming subscriptions themselves.
By the time O’Donovan’s transatlantic flight home from LAX airport had touched down in Dublin, his EU colleagues had almost finished their discussions over in Luxembourg.
The ministers made their way through an agenda that covered contingency planning for a big cyber attack in Europe, satellite connectivity and the future extension of the bloc’s mobile roaming area to include Ukraine and Moldova.
Out of the four EU meetings O’Donovan has been invited to so far this year, he has only made it to one.
The Limerick TD was all set to travel to an EU council last month, but his flight was cancelled before take-off, due to a technical issue.
When his department’s press office was asked for details of all EU-level meetings the Minister had been asked to attend, they initially omitted any mention of the missed June council in Luxembourg.
There’s another one coming up later this month in Brussels. The Minister’s attendance is still to be confirmed, a spokesman said.
