Dear readers,

There's a line from my favourite Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh which I find myself returning to: 'No one loves you for what you have done, but for what you might do.'

At this moment, it certainly rings true for the current phase of the EU's next long-term budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework. There's a real desire and expectation that this MFF meets the moment with real ambition – and the money required to tackle our priorities in our increasingly destabilised world, from competitiveness to security, the green transition to social cohesion and inequality.   

This is not just a negotiation over figures, but a negotiation over the future direction of our Union and our shared capacity to act. I'm proud that our numerous Opinions on various aspects of the MFF have brought the voices and expertise of citizens, workers and employers across Member States into EU policymaking on this issue. Finding compromise across our three groups on such a seismic topic is not easy. But this is the strength of the EESC and why we play such an indispensable role in Brussels. 

In addition to ambition and the protection of key budgets like CAP and cohesion, the MFF must include civil society and regional actors in its design and execution. This is a precondition for success.   

These are messages I conveyed in highly productive meetings last month with European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen and Agriculture and Food Commissioner Christophe Hansen. It was encouraging to hear the Commission President's endorsement of our work in this space, as well as the Civil Society Strategy and Platform and on affordable housing. 

Housing and stewarding the MFF process are two major areas of focus for the upcoming Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU, which kicks off on 1 July. The Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Micheál Martin launched the priorities of their EU Presidency – competitiveness, security and values – on 10 June in Dublin. 

I'm heartened that civil society engagement is not only an integral element to the values priority but is a thread throughout their whole Presidency programme. This was powerfully articulated by the Taoiseach and Minister of State for European Affairs Thomas Byrne earlier that day in Dublin Castle at our Extraordinary Bureau. 

The EESC has been requested by the Irish government to work on eight Exploratory Opinions on several joint priorities, including housing, competitiveness, digital regulation, tackling poverty, and the EU's approach to livestock, to ensure that the voices and expertise of civil society, employers and workers are heard in EU policy making during their Presidency. 

On a personal level, as the first Irish EESC President during Ireland's EU Council Presidency, I'm looking forward to this work and to representing the EESC at high-level events and informal council meetings on topics including social rights, farming and consumer policy in the months ahead. The aim is to build on our strong collaboration with the Cypriot EU Presidency who've been working with on topics including water resilience, poverty eradication, sustainable farming, and humane migration. 

This will begin on 5-6 July in Ballina, County Mayo, at the Informal Meeting of Employment and Social Policy Ministers where I will join discussions on tackling poverty, worker protections and addressing disability employment gap. 

As I outlined in a recent bilateral with Executive Vice President and Commissioner for Social Rights Roxana Mînzatu, now we have an EU Anti-Poverty Strategy, we must keep up the momentum in this space. The EESC will have a concrete role in its implementation, through the cooperation agreement to be signed with the Commission. 

Tackling poverty is not a nice to have. And it's not clashing with the drive to improve competitiveness. The two must go hand in hand – in the present, and in the next EU long-term budget.  

Séamus BOLAND

President of the European Economic and Social Committee