The consumer-rights group which filed complaints against the tech giant lashed out at the “disproportionate” time taken for the Irish privacy watchdog to protect sensitive location data.
Russian airstrikes killed a total of 400 Ukrainian civilians in July because Kyiv did not have enough interceptor missiles, but Greece and Spain declined to open their stockpiles at an EU defence ministers’ meeting in the Druids Glen golf club.
![[Interview] Irish liberal MEP Barry Andrews: ‘Trade measures are the EU’s only real leverage over Israel’](https://static.euobserver.com/2026/07/20250827_EP-189673A_AH1_0412-e1785396809246-2400x1295.jpg)
Barry Andrews said his visit to the West Bank convinced him that what he calls Israeli “apartheid” can only be tackled by EU economic pressure.
Frankfurt is among the few plausible options to take on EU handling of Israeli bonds, after Ireland and Luxembourg de-banked them on human rights grounds.
The Irish government is forecasted to spend up to €400m on its EU Presidency, potentially four times that of the recent Danish and Cypriot presidencies. While much of this money will be allocated to policing and security of high-level events, such an eye-watering sum raises the question: is Ireland simply attempting to dazzle the rest of the EU with a glorified PR exercise to sanitise its image in light of growing misdeeds?
The first female president of Ireland is no stranger to marginalisation. But a trip to the West Bank proved how extreme injustice can become normalised if there is no accountability, which “the EU has levers” to change
A group of leading university professors have urged the Irish EU presidency to sit out of negotiations on EU tax and digital laws, pointing to “insurmountable conflicts of interest”.
Will Ireland’s diplomatic charm fix budget wars and Gaza trade row in next six months?For the next six months, Dublin will try to play neutral on defence and Middle East policy while simultaneously pushing for a contentious EU budget deal that many in Brussels still think could easily collapse.
Ireland takes over the EU presidency as analysts ridicule its defence spending – Europe’s lowest at 0.2 percent of its GDP. But contributions to European security should not be measured by spending on arms alone: and Ireland is the case in point.
A one-word answer to why EU lost control of Big Tech: Ireland“Ireland cannot fix this itself. This cannot come from inside … [it] needs pressure from the other capitals and from the [EU]Commission,” Irish data-rights activist warns.
On 1 July this year, Ireland takes the rotating EU presidency and agenda powers on the crown jewels of EU tech laws: “That should make you worried,” says activist Johnny Ryan.
Water-resource conflicts already happening in Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands will only worsen now that the EU Commission plans to triple data centre capacity in Europe over the next five to seven years. Little thought has been given to the oligopolistic cloud market and how it will evolve if the EU triples its data centre capacity.