AS you probably know, the Republic will take over the presidency of the EU Council in July.

At present Cyprus holds the position, which lasts for six months.

The presidency rotates among the 27 EU member states so it will be quite a long time before Ireland holds it again. The last time was 2013.

It’s a very big deal for a state, for it places an enormous burden on politicians, officials and resources.

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It’s expected to cost the Republic about €300 million, though there will be financial help from Brussels.

According to the government’s website, Ireland expects to chair 22 informal ministerial meetings, 250 presidency events, and host a meeting of the wider European Political Community which will involve heads of state or government from 47 European countries.

That will be the largest event of its kind ever held in Ireland.

The EU Council which the Republic will chair is composed of ministers of the EU governments.

Some of the ministers, in areas like agriculture, finance and foreign policy, meet quite regularly, but in other areas like health less often, because the EU doesn’t have common policies in many areas.

When there is a meeting in a policy area it will be the relevant Irish minister’s job to chair it and try to reach a common position among the other 26 ministers.

The minister then has to represent that agreed position in negotiations with the EU Commission and Parliament to reach a final EU position.

However, the six months won’t all be about ministerial meetings in Brussels or Dublin.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Helen McEntee, said: “The presidency is not just about meetings and negotiations; it is about reconnecting people with what Europe means in their lives.”

There will be conferences and meetings all across the state involving universities, civil society and business groups.

Events will be spread across the Republic. Each county will be paired with an EU state and the ambassador from that state (conveniently for Dublin, there are 26 ambassadors) will visit schools, sports clubs and community organisations in the county.

The government has been preparing since early last year. The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Thomas Byrne, says: “Since last year, I have visited villages, towns and cities across Ireland [he means the south], to talk with people about the importance of our EU membership and the role that Ireland will play during our EU presidency.”

There’s a lot more in that vein, but you get the picture as the south gears up for the second half of 2026.

OK. Fair enough. Now, the question is, what about us?

There are over a million and a half EU citizens in the north, the majority of whom were dragged out of the EU against their will.

Will there be any attempt to include those people in the events taking place in the south?

We hear that the Irish government intends to invite ministers from the northern executive and representatives from the UK government to some of the 22 informal council meetings being held in Ireland between July and December.

There’s no doubt that if invited to such events, the British would turn up, so anxious are they to develop cordial relations with the EU.

Starmer and his minister for European Union relations, Nick Thomas-Symonds, have both attended EU meetings on energy and industry.

Sinn Féin and Alliance ministers here would jump at the opportunity.

The question is, will the DUP and their pathetic under-strappers, the UUP, try to exercise some sort of executive veto over attendance at such informal council meetings, as they instantly sought to do with Sinn Féin’s proposal for observer status at the EU parliament?

That would set the scene for a serious showdown at Stormont.

It’s extraordinary that a decade after their fiasco of backing Brexit, from which they have not yet recovered electorally, the DUP are still suffering from Brexit Derangement Syndrome.

Any mention of the EU elicits a neurotic, hyperbolic response.

Apart from that, the DUP remains unable to accept that a majority of people here (as now in Britain) would be only delighted to get back into the EU.

To return to the matter of events in the second half of the year, these also provide an opportunity to engage with representatives of the visiting states and their officials about the reunification of the island.

Of course Micheál Martin won’t do it, not even in Fianna Fáil’s centenary year.

However, there are other parties in the south, and Sinn Féin ministers in the north, well able to raise the question that dare not speak its name and demand the reintegration of the EU citizens in the north back into the EU.

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