Through a county-pairing initiative linking County Carlow with Luxembourg, alongside a vast programme of cultural, political and business events, Ireland aims to use its eighth presidency to advance competitiveness, values, and security. Irish Ambassador Jean McDonald shares more.
On the walls of the foyer inside the Irish Embassy residence are two unique images: one, a sketch of St. Laserian’s Cathedral in County Carlow commemorating a joint diocesan pilgrimage from the county to Echternach, the other a photo of the Cross of Rath Melsigi, which marks a site in the county where St. Willibrord studied prior to founding the Abbey of Echternach.
One of the innovative initiatives to come out of the Irish presidency of the Council of the EU, running 1 July through 31 December, is a county-pairing project through which each of the 26 counties of Ireland are being paired with an EU member state. Luxembourg has been paired with County Carlow, creating a platform through which the historic connections will be highlighted in both locations.
Ambassador of Ireland to Luxembourg Jean McDonald is looking forward to this presidency, Ireland’s eighth in total—“not only in [my] current role but as someone who has worked on EU affairs throughout my whole career, presidencies are an exciting moment. Traditionally Ireland and Irish people are very strong supporters of EU membership, and there is a strong sense of pride about previous presidencies.”
Such presidency milestones, she notes, have included Ireland’s role in facilitating discussions around German reunification in 1990 and the EU’s “Big Bang” enlargement in 2004, during which Dublin hosted the official signing ceremony. Ambassador McDonald believes there’s a “sense in the public mindset of a presidency having huge responsibility in terms of wanting to advance the legislative agenda… but also, as our Taoiseach [Micheál Martin], has said recently, it’s also about the communication of those results to the 450 million citizens of Europe what the tangible benefits of these negotiations are.”
“Strength with unity”
Ireland’s presidency slogan is Ní neart go cur le chéile – strength with unity—and will be guided by five strategic building blocks: simplifying rules, a more integrated single market, championing strong trade, energy transition, and digital/AI. These are anchored in three main themes: competitiveness, values, and security.
“The competitiveness piece is huge and is one shared with Luxembourg,” she adds, referring to Prime Minister Luc Frieden’s calling 2026 the “year of competitiveness”. “There’s a clear sense from across the EU that we need to bring improvements to ensure that Europe is able to compete in various sectors, which means us needing to make meaningful progress around the simplification agenda,” Ambassador McDonald adds. “The budget will, of course, be part of that.”
EU enlargement will be another focal area. The ambassador, whose first desk was in EU Affairs when she joined Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs in 2001, during which time the EU was establishing the groundwork for the 2004 enlargement, hopes to see progress for Montenegro, Albania, Moldova and Ukraine.
“We talk about the values in which the EU is anchored—the rule of law, human rights, respect for international law, equality issues, but these are issues we talk about in tandem with competitiveness and security,” she says,
adding that it’s about “bringing other countries along that European path, which involves the values piece.”
Luxembourg highlights
The Irish community in Luxembourg is estimated to be around 2,500 to 3,000 strong. The Grand Duchy’s financial services sector has been one of the main drivers, as have EU institutions which have witnessed a recent growth again in Irish representation, thanks at least in part to Ireland’s “A Career for EU” strategy. Ambassador McDonald is also happy that Irish is now an official language of the EU and says there’s an active local Irish-speaking community.
The ambassador sees a lot of potential for the presidency to further business and cultural relations and is enthusiastic around joint projects, be that in the audiovisual industry or with initiatives like the AI Factory Antenna, led by the University of Galway and the Irish Centre for High-End Computing, which will link to AI hubs in Luxembourg and France.
There’s quite a line-up of events to mark the Irish presidency in Luxembourg, with some still in the works. The formal launch event takes place on 1 July at the Foyer européen. A cultural event, Réaltbhuíonta | Constellations, takes place on 8 July, with priority tickets going to Irish nationals working at EU instititutions in Luxembourg, although some tickets will be made available to the general public (information will be shared in the coming days via the embassy’s social media). And on 11 July, Ireland will lead the diplomatic float at Luxembourg PRIDE.
Other planning underway centres on a poetry initiative with second-level schools in Luxembourg (to be announced in September); a local event with a high-level speaker from Ireland with EU experience, geared around reviewing the presidency (to be announced in December); as well as engagements with schools, university-level students, and the usual engagements with EU ambassadors accredited to Luxembourg and senior politicians.
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