Full coverage: Europe

Micheál Martin's comments at Bodenstown indicated that even a man as averse to a row as the Taoiseach recognises that the EU are now putting on the hard hats in discussions with the UK.

German governments do what voters have elected them to do, under the watchful eye of the Bundestag. This previously led to austerity-laced EU bailouts. This time, Germany’s big election issue was the environment.

The UK and the EU remain at loggerheads over how to manage trade around Northern Ireland after Brexit, yet current issues were first raised four years ago and solutions agreed in 2019. In his book, the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier explains how we came to this, but also reveals his personal outlook on Ireland, partition and why peace was his top priority.

The demise of the double Irish has left Ireland better off as multinationals switched to a range of other tax schemes to locate profits here. In delaying its tax harmonisation plans, the European Commission wants to harness the Covid and Biden effects to go after them all.

Damian Young worked at Bank of Ireland for 25 years before leaving for a job in Silicon Valley. Having seen how transport is changing, he launched an e-scooter business in Germany last year. Now he wants to expand the business elsewhere while also looking to raise €10m.

The Horizon 2020 programme is ending, with Irish companies receiving over €1 billion. But the EU’s innovation agenda is only getting more intense in the next decade.

Two months into her new job as European Commissioner for Financial Services, Mairéad McGuinness is facing into a potential wave of debt defaults. She wants to see a more sensitive response than the past wholesale offloading of non-performing loans to overseas vulture funds.

Corporate lenders and borrowers are used to British law and the closest alternative from next year will be Irish law. Deal or no deal, we already know some niche markets are ripe for this opportunity.

Last month, the Minister for Agriculture was burning the midnight oil in EU talks worth €10bn to Ireland. Next month, his industry is facing Brexit chaos. Yet Charlie McConalogue is at his most combative when discussing the lack of transparency in the beef trade.

With Phil Hogan gone, the focus now turns to the position he has vacated. Here is why the trade commissioner job matters, and why an Irish candidate is likely to replace Hogan.