Surrealing in the Years: Who would have thought Ukraine wouldn't want our decrepit combat vehicles?

AH, THE EU presidency. Has it really been 13 years already? How time flies when the world is falling apart.

It seems like only yesterday we were welcoming José Manuel Barroso (remember him?) and doing all the other memorable things that happen when a country holds the EU presidency… You know the kind of stuff.

Okay, you’ve got me. I can’t actually remember anything about the last time we held the EU presidency. Not because I’m too young or anything like that, just because it seems like this EU presidency business is much ado about very little. Just like a loved-up couple posting on Instagram to celebrate their half-year anniversary, it’s all a bit much for six months.

Nobody else cares that we’re the EU president, for example. You know damn well that you had no idea which country held the EU presidency before our current stint began, and if you do, it’s only because you heard it somewhere this week. It was Cyprus, by the way. Have you noticed yourself feeling any different about Cyprus in the last six months?

On some level, sure, it feels good to think that we, collectively, are the president of the EU for a time. You’re the president of the EU, I’m the president of the EU, we’re all the president of the EU. As for what that really means for any of us, well, it’s only been a few days, but it mostly seems to be about either closing roads, laying down new roads, or doing up some of our old roads (presumably the ones we’re doing up will be allowed to stay open). 

It has been pointed out by some that the government’s long-standing reputation as being eager to impress on the world stage sometimes gives the impression of a willingness to kowtow to whatever the EU might ask of us. Indeed, even hearing the word ‘troika’ feels like a cold and disembodied shadow crossing the back of your neck, a stark reminder of this country’s most austere hour. The last time we were presidents of the EU, we were in a state of economic turmoil that… well, it never quite went away, did it? At least not as it pertains to the provision of very basic needs, such as affordable housing or efficient access to healthcare. 

Given that our government has this reputation of wanting to look good in front of our European cousins, it has been suggested that now is the perfect time to embarrass our decision-makers. There appears to be a real fear of fuel protesters (a phrase that is of course shorthand for a much more multi-layered mix of different protest groups with different agendas) repeating the disruption of Easter, when many roads were blocked, and critical state services were curtailed. And yes, as discussed, a lot of roads in Dublin city centre have already been blocked to facilitate the EU presidency but… that’s the good kind of roadblocking. 

Justin Kelly, the garda commissioner, has said that any disruption of the EU presidency vis-à-vis critical infrastructure ‘will not be tolerated’, while An Garda Síochána itself has been allocated a budget of €125 million to make sure that none of us does anything that might let the Europeans know we’re unhappy.

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Then again, the Irish government has proved more than enough times that it can have a very high threshold for embarrassment when it wants. One might have expected a little more embarrassment this week, for example, when it turned out that we tried to donate 27 old armoured combat vehicles to Ukraine — a staggeringly poor country in its fourth year of a brutal war with a much bigger, much more powerful neighbour, that is constantly begging for more support from its allies — and Ukraine was like “Actually, you know what? We’re good, you can keep those”.

According to the Irish Times, the vehicles were first acquired 17 years ago but were “rarely used and frequently broke down”. I’m not Carl von Clausewitz or anything, but “frequently breaking down” seems like an undesirable quality for a vehicle the purpose of which is to be driven into a war zone. At that point, it’s not just embarrassing that Ukraine turned down the offer, but embarrassing that we even made it in the first place.

Back in February, Helen McEntee answered a question in the Dáil about the vehicles, during which she said: “These vehicles are now approaching end-of-life, are being withdrawn from active service and are due for replacement.” As far as a sales pitch goes, it’s about as compelling as Jack Lemmon in Glengarry Glen Ross. How would you boys like a ride on our finest, crappiest military vehicles? We never use ‘em because they suck so bad, so they’re basically brand new. Come on, I need to make this sale.

The only good news for Ireland is that there’s plenty of embarrassment to go around these days.

If you cast your eyes across the Atlantic you’ll see an empire in total spiritual free fall. America has been celebrating its 25oth birthday this week with a Great American State Fair in Washington DC. So far, the only remarkable thing about this celebration is that nobody is actually celebrating it. Footage from the festival in the US capital shows music performances by nobodies with less than a dozen people in the crowd, while Trump has been busying himself talking to the AI ghost of Teddy Roosevelt and asking him about the Panama Canal. 

The European Union also has plenty to be embarrassed about. Ireland has not done enough for Palestine by any means, but we have outpaced many of our EU allies by an order of magnitude, plenty of whom boast significantly more material influence than we can claim. Across the EU, arms are being sold to Israel to the tune of hundreds of millions of euros, facilitating their genocidal campaign in Gaza and their aggressive expansion both into the West Bank and southern Lebanon. 

Closer to its own shores, the EU still refuses to operate meaningful search-and-rescue missions in the Mediterranean, meaning that many refugee boats which get into difficulty en route to European shores are simply left to sink, and those aboard left to drown. According to the Brussels newspaper EU Observer, 180 people died across five shipwrecks between 28 March and 5 April alone this year. 

It is against this backdrop of abject moral failure that support for Ireland’s membership of the EU is at its lowest since polling began in 2013 when it was above 90%. It is still very high, mind you, at 82%, but it is telling that only half of all respondents to the latest European Movement Ireland poll believe that the European Union is “moving in the right direction”. A third of all respondents believe that the EU is failing to uphold its core values. 

In the abstract, one would imagine that six months of the EU presidency would be an opportunity to arrest this trajectory and reaffirm Ireland’s bond with the European Union.

Unfortunately, it seems like our best efforts are already going to waste. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen travelled from Dublin to Cork in a private jet this week. She didn’t even get to see our roads. 

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