Calls for Ireland to recuse itself from European digital sovereignty talks

In an op-ed for The Guardian, Dr Johnny Ryan, senior fellow at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), argues that Ireland should recuse itself from any tech and digital sovereignty negotiations when it assumes the the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union on 1 July. 

In the article, Ryan discusses how the presidency controls the pace of negotiations on EU legislation and can prioritise topics of interest. 

Ryan claims the Irish state is compromised by its reliance on Big Tech, noting that three US firms accounted for nearly half of its 2024 corporate tax revenue. Under the EU country-of-origin principle, Ireland is the chosen European headquarters for Google, Meta, Apple, Microsoft, OpenAI, TikTok and X. Despite this, Ryan argues that enforcement remains weak and that the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has failed to complete a single EU inquiry into Google in a decade. 

Training Announcement: Find out more about our range of independent accredited qualifications from BCS and IAPP. These include professional certifications for practitioners covering data protection and AI governance, information security and risk management, along with access to public information.