Every six months, one of the 27 EU Member States takes the chair. For those six months, that country leads every single meeting at every level of the Council of the EU, from Ministers negotiating headline legislation down to civil servants ironing out the technical details. We are talking about thousands of meetings in total (in 2013, it was 2,477).

The agreed approach to this role is to be an 'honest broker' and this genuinely matters. You are not there to bully your pet issues onto the agenda. You are there to find compromise, keep things moving and get the business of the EU done. That said, there is plenty of room for Ireland to influence: how things are ordered on an agenda, which events you choose to host, who gets a platform. The subtleties add up.

One honest caveat worth stating upfront: most of what a Presidency does will not land on your doorstep anytime soon. The bulk of the work is highly technical legislation that, even if agreed during our six months, may not take effect for years. The EU does not do fast. What the Presidency does do is keep an enormous, complex machine moving — and with a brief this wide, covering everything from fisheries quotas to AI regulation, our Civil Service will be earning their salaries several times over between July and December.

Ireland is known for running good Presidencies. Effective, well-organised, good at finding compromise. Eight Presidencies in and we have never really had a bad one. That is either reassuring or terrifying depending on how you look at it.

A quick crash course. The EU has three main institutions doing the heavy lifting on legislation. EU wonks, please do tell me where I've got this wrong — this is deliberately high-level:

• The Commission devises legislation. Think of it as the EU's civil service, staffed by people who are meant to transcend their national identities and work in the interests of Europe as a whole.

• The Parliament on behalf of citizens, refines and for a lot of legislation now needs to approve it alongside the Council.

• The Council where countries are very much representing their national interests, is the real powerhouse of decision-making. To be blunt: nothing happens until the Council agrees to it. The Parliament folk won't love that description, but the honest truth is that while they are involved in a lot of legislation, the Council is involved in all of it.

It is this last institution that Ireland chairs from 1 July to 31 December. The name is a bit of a red herring because it is not really one Council, it is in fact ten Councils, organised by policy theme.  Everything from farming and fisheries to foreign affairs and finance - you can read all about them here. Sheep to satellites, essentially. Each Council is chaired by the relevant Irish Minister, so across our six months many members of Cabinet will get their moment at the European table.

Beneath those ministerial meetings sits a whole architecture of preparatory work - of course it does, it is the EU. Two layers worth knowing about:

• Civil servant meetings. In Brussels, there are a huge volume of civil servant meetings getting legislation into shape before it reaches their Ministers. Irish officials chair all of these. Our Ambassador to the EU, Aingeal O'Donoghue, plays a central role, as do senior officials across our Brussels office, the Permanent Representation (or Perm Rep to its friends). The volume of these meetings is something to behold. For each piece of legislation, you are managing 26 other national positions alongside your own, with knock-on effects across multiple files simultaneously. Think 3D chess, played at speed, with 27 players across countless legislative chess boards. 

• Informal Council meetings. Informal Council meetings, usually held in the Presidency country. These are where a Presidency gets to add some of its own flavour — new issues, particular priorities, a chance to show the country off. The Irish Government has confirmed we will host 22 Informals in Ireland, with 25% outside Dublin.

Most of the work happens in Brussels. That is where the meetings are, where the deals get done and where Ireland has significantly beefed up its team to cope with the volume of work.

That said, there is a meaningful calendar of events on Irish soil. Informal Council meetings traditionally take place in the Presidency country, so Ireland will host Ministers and senior officials from across the EU throughout the six months. There are also some headline events: an AI Summit in Dublin in October, the European Political Community meeting in Dublin in November and a European Council meeting later in the year.

The full cadence of key official meetings runs from June through to December, covering everything from Environment and Agriculture to Finance and Foreign Affairs. Again, out of respect to the current Presidency, the official Irish Presidency calendar is not officially revealed until late June. 

And in addition to all the legislative meetings and Ministerial events, it’s also useful to be aware of Associated Events. These are events run by representative organisations and interest groups that are not “Government official”, but which the Government recognises in the Presidency Calendar as they help amplify the themes.

Not quite. Every Presidency is shaped by its moment, and EU2026 has a few things that make it genuinely distinctive.

The most obvious is timing. Ireland normally holds January to June Presidencies. This will be our first in the second half of the year — a H2 as it is known. That sounds like a nerdy distinction, and it is, but it has real consequences. August is the sacred political break. September pulls a lot of attention to New York for the UN General Assembly. December disappears into Christmas. In practice, you are working with four to five effective months rather than six. The calendar compresses quickly.

Ireland is also the first country in the next Trio of Presidencies, grouping us with Lithuania and Greece. The Trio structure exists to give some coherence between consecutive Presidencies rather than having things lurch from one set of priorities to the next every six months. And it will be our first Presidency without the UK in the room, which will be an interesting dynamic in its own right.

Then there is the political climate, which shapes everything. In 2004, Ireland hosted at the height of the Celtic Tiger, with the extraordinary privilege of welcoming ten new Member States into the EU. Events right across the country, a genuine moment of European optimism. In 2013, the context was entirely different. Ireland was in an IMF programme, fiscal discipline was not optional, and the Presidency was run accordingly — every penny accounted for, every decision scrutinised. We had to demonstrate that we were serious Europeans while being careful not to be seen spending money on Eurocrats when the public finances were under the microscope. And we did it. Ireland delivered a highly effective Presidency in genuinely difficult circumstances, which is worth remembering next time someone implies this is easy.

EU2026 sits in a different place again — neither boom nor austerity, but with its own pressures regarding security, competitiveness and values (hence the themes eh?). One practical dimension worth noting: we have heard that the Cyprus Presidency has had to curtail some of its planned programme due to the situation in the Middle East. That may mean the Irish Presidency attracts even more attention than usual, as it will be the next real opportunity for European leaders and officials to gather and h

Competitiveness, Security and Values are the three headline themes for the Irish Presidency. They are large buckets by design. The EU's legislative agenda covers everything from agricultural subsidies to artificial intelligence regulation, so you need themes broad enough to hold all of that without becoming meaningless.

• Next Multiannual Financial Framework. The EU's long-term budget. A negotiation that involves every country, every sector and very large numbers. The Tánaiste Simon Harris TD and Minister Jack Chambers will have their hands full.

• Competitiveness: A genuine priority for Ireland. There is a push to streamline EU legislation and grow the European start-up ecosystem (Google ‘Draghi Report) The decision to host a major AI Summit in Dublin in October is not an accident — it signals where Ireland wants to lead.

• Security: Given where the world is at the moment, this will have a clear defence dimension. Which is, to put it mildly, an interesting brief for Ireland as a traditionally neutral EU member to chair. Security is also a bit broader on this - it can also cover things like food security, access to data. Watch this space.

Values and rule of law: A very broad policy bucket, however one that is very relevant nowadays. As we are seeing, there is something more distinct now about ‘being European’. Useful to shine a light on that to further clarity and demonstrate tangibly beyond words.

Yes, with a bit of educated guessing. It is true that the detailed schedule will not be published until June out of respect to Cyprus, but Presidencies follow a reasonably predictable pattern. By looking at the last two H2 Presidencies (Hungary in 2024 and Denmark in 2025) we can make some well-informed guesses about the shape of Ireland's programme.

It depends on what kind of business you are, but a few things are worth saying upfront.

If you are in events, hospitality or venues, the opportunity is obvious. Several hundred meetings, many of them in Ireland, require spaces, catering, logistics and local expertise. Keep an eye on eTenders (search for Presidency of the Council of the EU), reach out to procurement teams in the relevant Departments and start talking to the main venues like Dublin Castle, the RDS and the Convention Centre to find out what is in the pipeline.

There’s already been procurements for host broadcasting, and vehicles - and there will be one for accreditation services (there’s been a market consultation but nothing issued as yet). 

If the big gigs are too big for your company, start talking to some of the obvious big representative players - Ibec, IFA etc - to see what their plans are for the Presidency and how you could possibly help. 

If you are in culture or the creative industries, the informal programming around Presidency events is a real platform. Ireland tends to use these moments well. Start looking at the programme now (above) and think about where you could fit. Start talking to some of the leading venues, or major representative organisations to see what events they are putting on and if they would like some music, dance etc. If useful, So Sympatico Productions has been awarded the contract “EU Culture Programme Manager to develop, manage, coordinate and deliver the EU Culture Programme under the direction of Culture Ireland.” They are worth a call! 

If you make merchandise, the tender has already been published on eTenders and it gives a good sense of what the Irish Presidency team is looking for. Here’s the link to the information about this - it closes on 20 March 2026. There’s also a specific tender for wool scarves, which is a very clever feature of the Irish Presidency (they did this in 2013 very successfully)

If you are a professional services firm, the Presidency generates demand for EU affairs expertise, public affairs support, communications and translation across the full six months - they did so here recently. Could be useful to reach out to your Government contacts to see if they are staffed well enough and if they need any other assistance in making this Presidency a success. 

On sponsorship: opportunities are limited through Government but industry events could be an option. The Government has to be understandably careful here about sponsorship - and recently, Denmark took no sponsorship at all during their Presidency. In 2013 Ireland did some, but it was very restricted. If opportunities do arise they will be published on eTenders, so make sure you are registered. 

This is where Associated Events can be really helpful.  A quick reminder of Associated Events. They are run by representative organisations and interest groups and tend to attract a good audience. They are not official Government events, however the Government will recognise them in the Presidency Calendar as it helps amplify the Presidency and its themes. Here’s the list from the last Presidency. 

The Government recently ran a call for associated events, though the full list will not be published - yes you guessed it - until the end of June. The practical move now is to contact your industry group, find out whether they submitted an event for the associated events programme and, if so, when it is scheduled and who they are planning to invite. If it is relevant to you, explore whether you can attend, speak or support it in some way. 

One thing worth doing regardless of your sector: use the fact that people are coming to Ireland to get that meeting.. Ministerial delegations from every EU member state will be passing through. If you have business interests in Spain, France or anywhere else in the EU, now is the time to find out when their Ministers are travelling and whether you could usefully arrange a site visit or a meeting near where they are already gathering.

Finding your Irish and European organisations

The most useful thing you can do is identify which organisations — Irish and European — are likely to be bringing people to Ireland during the Presidency. Here is how to find them.

Irish organisations

Most sectors have an umbrella body. Banking has the Banking and Payments Federation, business broadly has Ibec, and so on. Your sector almost certainly has one — finding it is the first step.

If you are coming at this fairly fresh, get your hands on an old IPA Yearbook and Diary. They paused production in 2024 but the older editions remain genuinely useful — they list virtually every organisation and not-for-profit in the country, and while some details will be out of date, most will not. It will get you 95% of the way there.

The lrish Lobbying Register is also worth a trawl if you want to see who is actively engaging on your issues. Find the names, and start to reach out. 

European organisations

Three resources worth knowing about for the Brussels landscape:

• The EU Transparency Register is free and public. It is a bit of a dig to get it but the information is there.

• Dods was always the place that produced the trusted Brussels bible, now online. It requires a paid subscription but is comprehensive and well-organised.

• Best in Brussels  is a free online guide focused on consultancies and law firms, useful if you are looking for professional support on the ground.

As the business of Brussels is talking, organisations that you’ll find that people are very open to being approached. So start the conversation.