UK & Ireland
Commonwealth in crisis
The threat of an institutional crisis hangs over this week’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Kigali, with UK prime minister Boris Johnson leading the campaign to replace the organisation’s incumbent Secretary General Baroness Patricia Scotland, a Labour member...
Irish businesses to receive help to move away from fossil fuels
Dublin will help businesses in Ireland move away from fossil fuels and towards more sustainable replacements with a fund worth €55 million. The Green Transition Fund, part of Ireland’s EU-financed National Recovery and Resilience Plan, will be comprised of helping...
Bank hikes interest rates in bid to curb inflation spike
The Bank of England on Thursday increased interest rates to 1.25% in a bid to head off spiralling inflation, which has hit 9% and is likely to rise further in the coming months. Read also: Europe’s central banks jack up interest...
Ireland, Microsoft join forces to boost national cybersecurity
Ireland’s government has joined a programme run by tech giant Microsoft to strengthen national resilience against cyberattacks. The Microsoft Government Security Programme facilitates information exchanges on threats and vulnerabilities, access to source code, and technical details about Microsoft products, which...
Ministers ‘undeterred’ by human rights court block on Rwanda asylum flights
UK ministers insist that they will press ahead with plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda as part of a £120 million deal, despite the first flight to east Africa being cancelled on Tuesday following a last-minute intervention by the...
Scottish leader sets out fresh plans for independence from UK
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on Tuesday announced plans for a “different and better vision” of an independent Scotland after unveiling a paper on Scottish independence that would set the scene for the debate on the second referendum. The SNP...
Dublin blasts UK for protocol legislation move
Dublin has sharply criticised the UK government for moving ahead with legislation facilitating the unilateral setting aside of parts of the Northern Ireland protocol. Read also: UK could face EU sanctions over new NI protocol bill “UK Government now proposing to...
Dublin welcomes Council of Europe’s criticism of UK’s ‘Troubles’ legacy bill
Dublin has welcomed a decision by the Council of Europe to request details from the UK on how proposed legislation that would grant conditional immunity to those accused of Troubles-era offences will comply with the European Convention on Human Rights....
Ministers play down controversies in Protocol bill
UK ministers insist that the new bill designed to allow them to override parts of the Northern Ireland protocol will not break international law ahead of its publication on Monday. Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis told the BBC on Sunday...
Johnson took ‘wrecking ball’ to UK-Irish relations, says British opposition leader
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has taken a “wrecking ball” to UK-Irish relations in handling the Northern Ireland Protocol, opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer said while visiting Dublin. Starmer was speaking about London’s plans to push ahead with legislation that...
Unilateral UK action on protocol would be ‘historic low point’, says Irish PM
Unilateral action by the UK to scrap parts of the Northern Ireland protocol would mark a “historic low point”, Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin told MEPs in an address to the European Parliament on Wednesday. The UK government reportedly plans to...
Ireland joins international trial of four-day work week
Thousands of workers in Ireland have begun trialling a four-day week after the country joined an international test of the system. Ireland joins the UK, US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand as the only EU participant in the six-month-long pilot...
UK prepares for life without Horizon Europe ahead of ‘last round of talks’
The UK government is preparing to abandon its attempts should ‘a last round of talks’ fail to break an 18 month impasse on whether UK universities and researchers can access the EU’s €95.5 billion Horizon Europe research and innovation programme.
Johnson survives confidence vote but faces long goodbye
Boris Johnson survived a confidence vote triggered by his own party on Monday evening that may well have left his leadership fatally undermined. The vote, which was triggered on Sunday after 54 Tory lawmakers, 15% of the Conservative parliamentary party,...
War paves way for new EU ‘defence format’, Ukraine’s deputy PM says
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna has called for an ambitious agenda that could include “a new security and defence policy of the EU”. Stefanishyna attended the ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) party’s 2022 congress, where Ukrainian...
Urgent action needed if Ireland to meet climate targets, agency says
Urgent and additional measures are needed if Ireland is to meet the climate targets it has set for itself, the country’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said in a newly released report. According to the EPA’s greenhouse gas emissions projections 2021-2040, published...
Ireland facing ‘different era’ of high energy prices, says PM
Newly agreed EU sanctions on Russian oil and gas are likely to herald a “different era” in terms of fossil fuel prices, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has warned. Speaking in Brussels on Tuesday (31 May) while attending the European Council summit,...
UK’s Rwanda cash for migrants deal to start in mid-June
The first plane of asylum seekers being deported from the UK to Rwanda under a controversial cash for migrants agreement is expected to leave on 15 June, the UK government confirmed on Tuesday 31 May. Home Office officials confirmed that...
Speaker unelected over Northern Ireland Protocol concerns
The Northern Ireland assembly failed to elect a new speaker on Monday after the Democratic Unionist party repeated that it would not vote on a speaker until its concerns about the Northern Ireland protocol had been resolved. The speaker cannot...
Ireland confirms first monkeypox case
Ireland confirmed its first case of monkeypox this weekend in the east of the country as cases rise across Europe. The case was detected in the east of Ireland, the country’s Health Service Executive (HSE) said on Saturday (28 May),...
Government unveils windfall tax to fund £400 energy discount to all
Every household will get an energy bill discount of £400 in the autumn as part of a series of government handouts to be financed in part by a new 25% levy on oil and gas firms, the government announced on...
Par-European rights watchdog alerted after Irish opposition leader sues broadcaster
An alert has been registered in the Council of Europe’s (CoE) press freedom platform after the head of Sinn Fein, Ireland’s largest opposition party, launched a defamation suit against broadcaster RTÉ. Mary Lou McDonald, leader of Sinn Féin, filed the...
Johnson survives ‘partygate’, again
Boris Johnson appears to have survived the final report into lockdown-breaking parties and social gatherings in his Downing Street residence at the height of the COVID pandemic on Wednesday but the prime minister may well have suffered terminal damage to...