Ireland in the EU post-Brexit, with former Irish Minister for European Affairs, Lucinda Creighton

From tax and neutrality to quibbling reunification and political leadership

Lucinda Creighton, the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2011-2013 and CEO of Vulcan Consulting, speaks to the IoI team and Dr Julie Smith, Baroness Smith of Newnham. How can Ireland influence EU policy without its “big brother” there to advocate for liberal economics and regulation? Is Ireland a corporate tax haven? How far are Irish neutrality and reunification with the North just “romantic” notions? And is there enough political leadership, in Ireland, the UK and the EU, to find a solution to the Northern Ireland Protocol?

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• Executive summary
• About the speaker and discussant
• What was said?

Executive summary

How can Ireland maintain and rebuild its influence in a post-Brexit EU without the United Kingdom’s influential advocacy for liberal economic and regulatory policy? And why is there an urgent need for a multilateral resolution over the Northern Ireland Protocol?

• The Irish Republic has “traditionally relied on the United Kingdom to advance a lot of our key policy priorities” and “world view” in the European Union, promoting liberal economics, “tax competition and competitiveness generally”, and opposing “undue regulation and state intervention”. Ireland has now lost its “big brother” in the EU, and as a “small member state”, does not have the influence to promote this policy agenda unilaterally.  
• To maximise its influence in a post-Brexit EU, Creighton believes Ireland should rebuild its bilateral relationships, “goodwill” and “political capital” with all EU member states, not just major economies such as France and Germany. These bilateral relationships with the EU 27 have been underfunded since the 2007-8 crash and subsequent Eurozone Crisis. 
• Ireland must “shape the agenda by being nimble” and “willing to compromise”, contributing more and making concessions to achieve policy goals in key areas such as trade and corporation tax.
• Responding to the Biden administration’s campaign for international minimum corporation tax rates, Creighton emphatically rejects accusations that Ireland is a tax haven. It meets none of the three OECD criteria for tax havens, and its 12.5% corporation tax rate, although low by international standards, is applied consistently without the subsidies and exemptions offered by other states. Ireland has “closed off a lot of tax loopholes in the last decade”. 
• Creighton thinks that Ireland’s claims to neutrality are to some extent a “romantic” misnomer. Ireland is “not really non-aligned”; it allows the US military to use Shannon airport for stop-offs, has deployed its soldiers on an EU mission in Bosnia, and benefits from the NATO security umbrella, without the cost of contributing to it. Creighton wants Ireland to engage in an “honest and mature national discussion” on its future security and foreign policy.

About the speaker

Lucinda Creighton is CEO of Vulcan Consulting, a barrister, and former Irish Minister of European Affairs. She was a member of the Dáil from 2007-16. Lucinda was minister of European Affairs at an interesting period including representing Ireland in key negotiations on Ireland's EU-IMF bailout and during Ireland's presidency of the Council of the European Union. Lucinda also led negotiations of 28 member states with a €960 billion EU budget and represented the EU in bilateral trade discussions with the US, leading to the start of TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations.

About the discussant

Dr Julie Smith, Baroness Smith of Newnham, Fellow in Politics with a particular interest in the UK's relation with the EU. Her recent work has included European elections, referendums, and the role of European and national parliaments in the European Union.

What was said?

During her time in elected politics, Lucinda Creighton worked at the interface between Dublin and Brussels. She served as Irish Minister for European Affairs from 2011-2013 – a significant period for EU-Ireland relations, which saw debt negotiations with the EU and IMF, Ireland’s presidency of the European Council, and early discussions around the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. In 2013, Creighton lost her ministerial position and was expelled from Fine Gael after voting for an amendment to the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act. Breaking with the party whip, Creighton voted in favour of prohibiting abortions in cases where the mother was at risk of suicide. Creighton remained a TD, as an independent within the Reform Alliance, and founded a new political party, Renua, in 2015. She ran unsuccessfully in the 2016 general election, and now works as the CEO of her firm Vulcan Consulting, which provides “strategic advice on navigating political and regulatory hurdles across Europe.” Now that Creighton’s out of elected politics, Barry Colfer suggests she can be “a bit more forthright” on current affairs, and she speaks candidly on a range of issues, such as Ireland’s tax rates and neutrality, its future in the EU, reunification with the North, the British press, and, of course, Brexit. 

Creighton sees Brexit as a “tragedy of the highest order”. In Ireland, “Nobody thought it was possible that the UK could vote to leave”, but Creighton believed a Leave victory was inevitable once a referendum was announced, the consequence of “forty years of negative press about the European Union”. If the UK wanted to rejoin the EU, “in the morning, next week, next year, in 10 years time”, Creighton would welcome it back, and believes the majority of Irish people would too. However, in the meantime, Ireland needs to secure a workable solution for Northern Ireland and adapt its own approach to European affairs.

Former Conservative MP David Lidington, whose ministerial positions included Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and Minister of State for Europe, asks Creighton, “How concerned are you, and opinion in Ireland more generally, about continuing friction over the Northern Ireland Protocol?” Creighton believes that, in the short term, the Protocol “solved the problem both for the EU and the Johnson Government, in that it got us to a point where we could put through the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.” However, significant issues remain unsolved and claims that Northern Ireland has got the “best of both worlds” with continued membership of the UK and EU customs standards come from a reductive “economic lens”. Creighton thinks many in the Republic have “failed to understand the basis of the Unionist perspective in Northern Ireland”, and this community’s “vulnerability” within the UK. Creighton was also “appalled” at how British media and public discourse have neglected the Northern Irish dimension of Brexit.

She predicts that, “Getting to a political compromise around some kind of a hybrid between political convergence and some kind of equivalence will take many more months”. Barry asks whether the “political leadership exists to find a proactive compromise” to such issues, and if there are current leaders in the EU, Ireland and UK comparable to the key architects of the peace process – John Hume, David Trimble, Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and others. Creighton insists that “great statesmen and statecraft” aren't needed here – the political problems aren’t as “complex” as those around the peace process, and compromise can be achieved by politicians acting sensibly in their own country's “selfish interest”. However, the stakes are still “existential”, and politicians should recognise this. She argues that the British government would only receive a “negative headline in the Telegraph for a day” for “conceding too much on regulatory alignment” to the EU. “Will anyone judge Boris Johnson for that? I don’t think so. But they will judge him if bombs start going off in Canary Wharf.”

Creighton believes that Brexit has “enormously damaged the peace process and political stability in Northern Ireland”, further polarising an already unhealthy political system, dominated by “two totally opposing political parties”, who “carve up positions” and are “doing a pretty woeful job” of leading the region. Creighton believes that, more than two decades on, the Good Friday Agreement’s power-sharing system seems defunct, and is failing to encourage compromise and good governance. However, Irish reunification does not offer a constitutional solution in the near future; it is still  “a long way away”. Many in the Republic want reunification in a “romantic” way, and would be less enthusiastic after confronting the policy detail, costs and concessions it would necessitate in practice.

Relations with the North are only one of a plethora of relationships that Ireland must re-orientate post-Brexit. Creighton explains that the UK served as Ireland’s “big brother” in the EU, using its larger economic and diplomatic heft to advance a shared commitment to liberal economics, “competition and competitiveness generally”, and oppose “undue regulation and state intervention”. Now, as a small EU state dwarfed by major social democratic economies such as France and Germany, Ireland must “shape the agenda by being nimble” and “willing to compromise”, making tactical concessions to achieve key policy goals. “The nature of geopolitics is if you receive support you are expected in due course to also support in return”, and Ireland can’t just be seen to reject policies. Ireland must also rebuild its bilateral relationships with the EU 27, even with small member states such as the Baltics. These relationships have been underfunded since the 2007-8 crash and subsequent Eurozone crisis, and require “goodwill” and “political capital” to rebuild them.

Where might Ireland have to make concessions in a post-Brexit EU? Creighton staunchly defends Ireland’s oft-criticised corporation tax system. She rejects allegations that Ireland is a tax haven, arguing that it meets none of the three OECD criteria for tax havens, and its 12.5% corporation tax rate, although low by international standards, is applied consistently without the subsidies and exemptions offered by other states: “We would argue, our rate is our rate”. Ireland has also “closed off a lot of tax loopholes in the last decade”. Creighton expresses a degree of resentment at President Biden for his administration’s pressure on Ireland to raise corporation tax rates, especially given Biden’s Irish heritage, which he invokes “in every second paragraph”. Creighton wants international tax reform to be negotiated at an OECD, not EU level.

Creighton seems more open to a reevaluation of Ireland’s security and foreign policy. She says that Irish neutrality, like reunification, “is also a bit of a romantic notion”. Ireland “isn’t really neutral. We are just barely non-aligned, and we’re not really non-aligned, let’s be honest.” Creighton cites US military stop-offs at Shannon airport, and the deployment of Irish troops on EU peacekeeping missions in the Balkans. She argues that Ireland benefits from the NATO security umbrella, but is reluctant to contribute to regional security. “We’re happy to receive, and we’re a lot less happy to give.” Creighton believes Ireland needs to have an “honest and mature national discussion” on security and foreign policy. Could Ireland have to take on a more active role in European collective security, in order to secure its goals in other areas of EU policy? This and much else is uncertain, as Ireland navigates the unfamiliar terrain of a post-Brexit EU.