Ireland is assuming the presidency of the council of the European Union (EU) at a critical juncture in the formation of a new long-term budget for the period 2028 to 2034.

The task that lies ahead is by no means easy – Ireland will need to take on the role of ‘the honest broker’ in steering complex negotiations that the EU says will “shape laws and policy for around 450m people”.

While many readers of the Irish Farmers Journal are focused primarily on the Common Agricultural Policy, or what the long-term budget for agriculture will be, there are a myriad of conflicting interests vying for a greater share of the pie.

The EU highlights a tricky landscape to navigate including Russia’s continuing war in Ukraine, a politically sensitive migration environment, pressure on EU competitiveness and intensified demands on climate change targets.

Each member state has its own priorities which raises the challenge on getting agreement on a multi-annual financial framework (MFF) which has the consent of the European Parliament can be signed off by the European Council.

The scale of the task is put in to perspective when you consider the following figures.

We saw last week how divergent the views from Irish farm organisations in Ireland are.

These views are only one part of a substantial volume of 485 submissions collected by the Irish Government during its consultation phases.

When this is replicated across the 27 member states and over 170 different working parties then the complexity of getting common agreement starts to become apparent.

It is expected that up to 280 official presidency meetings will take place during the presidency with upwards of 140 to 150 associated meetings.

These are only the official presidential meetings and each member state will be holding their own internal or bilateral meetings in response to proposals put on the table.

A programme is currently being finalised. If the focus of such meetings is wrong then a lot of time can be allocated to topics that might be challenging to reach compromise on.

The aim is to get agreement on a MFF that can be put forward for adoption by the end of 2026.

While this may seem like a window of six months to complete negotiations it is only really 4.5 months when you take that very little happens during the month of August, which is typically a holiday period in the political calendar, while another two weeks can be discounted for Christmas festivities.

The number of delegates expected to visit Ireland for meetings/events during Ireland’s presidency is a remarkable figure of over 30,000.

The last time Ireland held the important position of Presidency of the European Council was also at a critical juncture in negotiations.

On 8 February 2013 the European Council reached agreement on the EU’s budget for the period 2014 to 2020 under the aegis of the Irish Presidency.

Irish negotiators,led by Taoiseach Enda Kenny were credited with securing a higher budget for Ireland.