CEU Center for EU Enlargement Studies (CENS), the Embassy of Ireland in Hungary, the Rectorate, and CEU Department of International Relations and European Studies (IRES) hosted a public lecture on 25 February 2013 entitled “Stability and growth: the Irish approach to Presidency of the Council of the EU”. The lecture was delivered by H.E. Mr Kevin Dowling, Irish Ambassador to Hungary, to a distinguished group of diplomats, ambassadors, students and university professors.

Ambassador Dowling centered his presentation around two pillars which are, the at same time, the main approaches of the current Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU: stability and growth. He sees stability and growth as two interconnected and consensus themes essential for strengthening the monetary union and overcoming the financial crisis. Stability as one of the two key approaches of the Irish Council Presidency was chosen naturally after witnessing and experiencing many years of instability in the EU, especially in the area of euro-zone, single market, and the banking problems of Ireland. Growth is as equally important since the EU has not been contributing to growth in recent years unlike the growth trends in Asia, South America, and the USA. His Excellency emphasized the importance of addressing these two issues reminding that Ireland will not solve them during their six-month-long Council Presidency, bur raising them in order to be also tackled later.

One of the priorities of the Irish Council Presidency is initializing free trade agreements between the EU and the USA and Canada. They are optimistic that they will have launched the negotiations until the end of June 2013. Mr Dowling outlined that solving problems between the EU and the USA will help solving problems globally (e.g. food regulations, etc.) and would have great impact elsewhere in the world.

In the second part of the presentation, Ambassador Dowling touched upon the issues that Ireland has been facing in the recent years: fiscal, banking and economic crisis and how much progress they made in each of the areas.

Finally, Mr Dowling stressed the importance of employment which is the main component of growth, paying special attention to the “youth guarantee” since the youth unemployment is one of the major concerns nowadays (e.g. 14% of young people are unemployed in Ireland today). He also highlighted the fact that Ireland is in favor of the EU enlargement. He said he believes that this process is a win-win situation and that this statement is not just a cliché, but a very valuable cliché.

The speech was followed by a lively question and answer session touching upon a variety of issues.

The lecture was chaired by Péter Balázs, Director of CENS and former Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs.