When Taoiseach Micheál Martin took to the podium at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, he was billed as the main event but attention was 500 kilometres away in a courtroom in Paris. Marine Len Pen’s appeal of an embezzlement conviction would decide whether or not the far-right leader could run in next year’s French presidential elections. It is with that spectre that EU institutions want to get a €2 trillion long-term budget agreed before the end of the year, and they’re counting on Ireland to get that done. These nerves speak to the fraught nature of the multi-annual financial framework…

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