The Eagle Interviews Diplomat Declan Kelleher

By Lucy Mockler, JS Law

Declan Kelleher was Permanent Representative of Ireland to the European Union in Brussels from September 2013 to March 2020. Prior to that appointment, he was Ambassador of Ireland to the People’s Republic of China from 2004 to 2013.

From 2000 to 2004, he was Ambassador and Representative of Ireland to the EU Political and Security Committee in Brussels, and chaired that Committee during Ireland’s 2004 Presidency of the European Union.

His previous overseas postings were at the Embassy of Ireland in Washington DC (from 1987-1991) where he was First Secretary for Press and Political/Congressional Affairs. From 1980-1983, he was posted at the Permanent Mission of Ireland to the UN in New York and was a member of Ireland’s delegation to the UN Security Council in 1981-1982.

During his career, he has also served in a number of important and senior posts at the Headquarters of Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Dublin, including on Anglo/Irish and Northern Ireland matters, and on foreign policy and EU questions.

Why did you choose to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford? Did you find it to be a useful and interesting degree? I was actually admitted to Oxford to study law. The economics tutor at my college was looking through the entrance exam papers and asked whether I would be interested in studying philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) instead. I felt that law was important but that PPE would be a good stepping stone if I wanted to pursue law as a career afterwards. What I liked about PPE was that it was mathematical and I was mathematically inclined, but also it was quite rigorous. There was a fair amount of legal as well as regular philosophy in it. The principle of the college I attended was actually quite a famous legal philosopher – a man named HLA Hart. I enjoyed PPE but every so often since then I look back and think perhaps I should have studied law, because having a professional qualification is always a useful string to the bow.

What prompted you to enter the civil service having initially worked as an economic analyst in the private sector? I started working as an economist specialising in the global oil and shipping market. I applied to join the civil service but these were the days shortly after Ireland joined the European Community. There had been massive recruitment one or two years after we joined and then it slowed down, so there was a long period after I applied where nothing much seemed to happen. I was then called for interviews and an exam and eventually joined in 1977.

I joined the Department of Foreign Affairs because at first sight it looked interesting, and it has been very interesting. Had I been more aware of the possibility of joining the Department of Finance I would probably have opted for finance over foreign affairs. However I am very glad I went into foreign affairs and the knowledge of economics and finance has been very useful to me in my career, particularly while working in Brussels.

Interview Page 28 When taking up your role as Permanent Irish Representative to the European Union (EU), you stated that a primary focus was the advancement of specific objectives agreed at EU level, including those of particular interest to Ireland such as banking stability, economic governance, trade agreements and a people-centered approach. What do you consider to be the important objectives for Ireland’s engagement with the EU in the coming decade? I was appointed by the Irish Government in 2013 which was shortly after our financial crash and when we were getting back to normality. At that time, those appeared to be the key objectives in terms of normalising our economy and ensuring that we fulfilled all of the requirements that the EU, the European Central bank and the IMF had set down to get us out. We were still in the “troika”, which was the aid arrangement, for about a year after I joined. When we emerged from that we applied very rigorously these disciplines which were put in to prevent another systemic crisis.

Those objectives are still valid to a point but if I was to be asked the question now, I would probably have a different set of objectives. One would be managing the post-Brexit situation. Brexit took up a very large amount of my time over the last few years, and in fact it was the reason the Taoiseach asked me to stay on three years after retirement. Economic recovery would also be crucial – Covid-19 having been a big hit. The national accounts are in good shape at the moment but we must be careful. We need to work with our EU partners on this. We must also optimise our role within the EU. Following Brexit we are the only fully common law jurisdiction left in the EU which is the preferred legal approach of international business, so we would want to bring that to bear and obtain the best benefits of that from our EU membership.

The geopolitical headwinds have become much choppier over the last few years. This is partly because of the guarantors of the post second world war rules-based international order within the United States. Under the Trump administration, they simply withdrew from all of those arrangements. Even when they had problems they preferred to go it alone. They were picking fights with China while denouncing the EU which is not a wise thing to do, and denouncing NATO too of which Ireland is not a member but which is a very important anchor for that transatlantic relationship. So I think we as Ireland would want to ensure not only that our position is protected within the EU, but also that the EU itself becomes a more effective player on the global scene as that is good for our hard-nosed interests. Since 2014 we have been a net budgetary contributor to the EU and so it is important that we be as fully engaged in all EU activities as possible. That means ensuring that we are always in the mainstream of the EU. It also means revisiting our position on things like European defence, where traditionally we have been a bit nervous and allergic. We are a small country and so we are not a military player, but I think it is more a question of solidarity and being part of the common project. The defence challenges are changing and becoming more germane to the structure of our economy i.e. cyber threats. We have a knowledge-based economy based on substantial US foreign direct investment and an impressive emerging domestic industry of high tech. We have to protect that, and so that suggests we should work very closely with our EU partners in this area. We must also ensure that we are tactically nimble on things like corporation tax. Paschal Donohoe has been handling this very well and I myself worked very closely with him on this when I was Permanent Representative. Photo courtesy of Declan Kelleher

EU strategic autonomy and EU sovereignty is something else worth mentioning. I think it is important that the EU protects its own interests, however it is equally important that the EU, in becoming more savvy and hardnosed in the world, should not become more protectionist. We must ensure that there is a balance across the EU and that those objectives of being successful in a choppier global environment and ensuring that values of multilateralism and free trade continue to be respected, while being careful about the threats, do not shade into a more statist or protectionist approach.

Before the UK left the EU we had an idea that the British referendum could be lost and so we were looking at building up alliances within the EU. Traditionally because of common law and because of similar approaches on judicial and financial issues, Britain was the big player and had a blocking minority within the EU. Ireland, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries would tuck in there, but that is no longer possible. Today we have to be more assertive at an early stage in setting out our interests. We must also maintain our alliances with other member states, which are not hard alliances but rather issue specific. In the financial area for example we have become quite closely aligned with the Netherlands and the Nordic countries, which is known as the New Hanseatic League. We would also be seen along with the Dutch, the Nordics, the Czechs and one or two others as champions of free trade and openness.

I would say that those are the challenges and priorities we should be looking at over the next few years.

Present Joe Biden has said that safeguarding peace in Ireland will be a key consideration in any future US-UK trade deal and has underlined his commitment to the Good Friday Agreement. In your opinion, how would the UK-US relationship be affected if the UK were to renege on its legal obligations under the Withdrawal Agreement? It is quite surprising that the current British administration doesn’t seem to understand how important the peace process in Northern Ireland and on the island of Ireland is to the US. Friends of Ireland was founded in 1981. The group was originally known as the four horsemen (Senator Ted Kennedy, Senator Pat Moynihan, House Speaker Tip O’Neill, and Governor of New York Hugh Carey). They were deeply committed to a peaceful solution to the problems in Northern Ireland and to building relationships between Ireland and the US. The group also extended the hand of friendship to the British. They wanted the British to understand the centrality of the Republic of Ireland in efforts to resolve the issues in Northern Ireland and hoped that the issue would be cooperative. The US Congress is very powerful and the Friends of Ireland remain very powerful. It is also bipartisan. Throughout the Brexit issue when briefing people like Michel Barnier and his close advisors, I was struck by how instinctively they understood the problems in Northern Ireland. If you look at the preparatory work leading up to the Good Friday Agreement in the 1990s, a great deal of that was done under conservative administration. There is no reason why British conservatives should have amnesia on this although they appear to have amnesia. They didn’t seem to understand how important what had been achieved in Ireland through the constant, benevolent involvement of the US was.

Joe Biden, himself of Irish heritage, has always felt strongly that the congressional caucus on Ireland and the US is bipartisan. The Americans have made it very clear that there is no way there will be a US-UK trade deal if Brexit and the behaviour of the British Government causes any damage to the Good Friday Agreement. The bipartisan commitment of the US to what has been achieved on the island of Ireland is immense. They were the people who brought not only the republican side but also the unionist and loyalist side into the White House parties starting in the 1990s. It is absolutely evident that anything that would be done to renege on legal obligations or complicate the Good Friday Agreement will be viewed very critically in the US.

Having said that, the very act of Brexit is a complication of the Good Friday Agreement. The Agreement, without altering the constitutional status of Northern Ireland, essentially eroded what had been a very divisive

border in a way that meant people could forget about politics and focus on improving lives. That was only possible because of the creation of the European Internal Market in 1992. If you look at the preamble and other areas of the Agreement, there is an assumption that the UK will remain a full member of the EU. In that way, Brexit itself is a complication which is why it was so important in the first phase of the negotiations to ensure that the border issue was properly protected in the Withdrawal Agreement and not left to a rather chaotic endgame. It was a cast-iron position that I put forward on behalf of the Irish Government and we got what we wanted. Given the bluster that is going on at the moment you can see how right we were, and also to ensure that our American friends understood this fully.

The EU, US and China are widely regarded as the world’s most prominent economies and geopolitical actors. What are your thoughts on the complicated relationships between these global powers? The economic rise of China is extraordinary. When I went there 17 years ago it was only about the 5th largest economy in the world, now it is the largest on purchasing power parity and continues to grow. China’s attitude has changed partly because of the global financial crisis and partly because of their blossoming in the Beijing Olympics. Chinese decision-making is now less cautious and less risk-averse and indeed has been quite assertive in some respects.

The US-China relationship has become quite complicated. One of the reasons for this is that traditionally the biggest supporters of US-China good relations was American Big Business and the Republican party. Given the problems American Big Business has experienced in China in relation to intellectual property and issues of trade, there is now a jaggedness in the relationship which won’t disappear with the departure of Donald Trump. The Democrats and Joe Biden, while not as extreme in some of the things they say, are pretty tough on what China has to do.

In addition to that complicated relationship, the EU last year adopted again a more assertive approach to China. A very important communication by the Commission was approved by the heads of government wherein we saw China as a partner, a competitor and a systemic rival in respective areas. Systemic rival is code for governance, a different approach to human rights and a different world view.

The important thing now is the multilateral system, the global rules-based order which Ireland and the EU subscribe to, and to which the US has before and will hopefully again subscribe to. A more cooperative approach is required in the transatlantic sphere and that is already happening. I think the upcoming heads of government meeting in the EU will consider a new EU-US agenda for global change.

China is a huge player and shares important interests with us on global goals such as climate change and the fight against illnesses and pandemics. One of the challenges moving forward will be how to ensure that cooperation will work in a way that does not create more jagged corners in the global set of relationships. The EU will continue to press China on things like trade rules. It will also want to see the World Trade Organisation (WTO) reinvigorated, which Trump was completely against but Biden is not. The EU will also want to see no dumping by the Chinese as well as proper safeguarding of intellectual property.

But again, from an EU perspective we have this three-fold approach to China: partner, competitor and systemic rival. So while China is in some areas a systemic rival we are not simply going to isolate China, which would in any case be impossible due its size and presence and the fact that until recently all EU countries had essentially good relations with China. Ireland’s relationship with China has always been good, although we are very much part of the EU approach on human rights and other issues. It is essentially a matter of China being a good international citizen. China is a permanent member of the

UN Security Council and is one of the largest suppliers of peace-keeper personnel. But China is also not playing by the rules on trade and human rights issues. So it is a question of how we can work forward on that; protecting our own interests whilst ensuring there is an effective relationship that exists. My own view is that this is what the Biden administration will want to do as well. They will be quite severely critical of China but will not want to isolate it.

China is constantly advancing its technology and becoming a bigger and bigger player in the world. This does not mean that China will suddenly become a Western democracy. I think one of the mistakes many people in Europe and the US made when admitting China to the WTO in 2001 was assuming that China would become more western as a result. China is very western in terms of having a consumer culture, but China’s basic approach is not western in terms of democracy.

Having served as Irish Ambassador to China for almost a decade, what are your thoughts on the importance of languages for maintaining positive international relations? It is important that as many people as possible in the EU have workable French and also a reasonable standard of German. Having said that, in the western world English has become a lingua-franca, even with the UK leaving the EU. The importance of English in the EU is that it has become an international language and is the preferred language by Eastern European members who have joined.

I would say from my own experience that languages are very important and I would strongly encourage people to learn languages as they give you an edge, but equally languages are not necessary to have. By the time I left China my Chinese was very good. However to give China as an example, official meetings are almost always done through interpreters. I found the advantage of having Chinese to be primarily in building relationships. There were a lot of western Ambassadors in China from some of the bigger countries who didn’t speak Chinese. 20 years ago that would have been inconceivable, but that has lessened as more and more Chinese people speak English. Still, there is a trap in that because it is better for English speaking residents in the EU to have a second or third language. I certainly think someone who goes on a posting to China should put in the effort to have a reasonable level of Chinese.

What advice would you have for those who are interested in pursuing a career in foreign affairs? Interest in foreign affairs and an awareness of international spheres is important. This means maintaining an interest in how Ireland is placed in the world and how Ireland works in the world. For instance, we are about to join the UN Security Council which we are on every 20 years or so. I myself was a member of our delegation as a very junior diplomat 40 years ago. Then again if we consider the structure of foreign affairs, we are only on the Security Council for 2 years and then we are off and will not be given another membership for 20 odd years. So while the Security Council is interesting, it is not the only thing there is to look at.

Having a legal background in foreign affairs is absolutely crucial. Some of our European partners practically insist on individuals having legal backgrounds... So I think if you are a law student, you have an in-built advantage because you are going to understand the structure of international relations in a much more immediate way than those who haven’t studied law. Looking at these things from a legal perspective is important. International law is crucial but is rather different from domestic law as it is much more couched at the level of principle and international instruments which individual countries can wriggle out of. The sanctions are also not that well developed. I really do think that looking in that international legal dimension is fantastically good preparation for foreign affairs.