Michael Flatley intends to make presidential bid, his barrister confirms
Barrister Ronnie Hudson notified the court on Friday of a 'material change in circumstances' for Flatley during a High Court case he has taken in relation to works carried out at his Cork mansion.
Flatley is to move back to Ireland within the next 14 days and look to run in the presidential election this autumn, his barrister confirmed.
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Tony Holohan 'reflecting' on how to contribute to public life in future
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The dancer, who is eligible to run as an Irish citizen, had
strongly hinted at a presidential bid
last week, but said he had not made a final decision.
An affidavit signed by Flatley's solicitor Maxwell Mooney was submitted to the court stating that the Irish-American is 'to seek nominations to run for president of Ireland'.
An election for the largely ceremonial role is expected towards the end of October, as it must take place in the 60 days before outgoing President Michael D Higgins's term ends on November 11th. - PA
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Irish Times
17 minutes ago
- Irish Times
Donald Trump tells Moscow to reach peace deal with Kyiv in 10-12 days or face severe tariffs
Donald Trump has given Russia '10 or 12 days' to reach a peace deal with Ukraine. The US president slashed the 50-day deadline he had issued to Moscow earlier this month to end Europe's biggest war since 1945 or face 'severe' tariffs on its trade. Ukraine welcomed Mr Trump's intention to bring the deadline forward by almost a month and his admission he was 'very disappointed' by Russian president Vladimir Putin and 'not so interested in talking [to him] any more'. 'I'm going to make a new deadline of about 10 or 12 days from today. There's no reason in waiting … I want to be generous, but we just don't see any progress being made,' Mr Trump said beside British prime minister Keir Starmer in Scotland on Monday. READ MORE Earlier, as the leaders stood on the steps of his hotel in Turnberry, Mr Trump said: 'We thought we had it settled numerous times. And then president Putin goes out and starts launching rockets into some city like Kyiv and kills a lot of people in a nursing home or whatever. You have bodies lying all over the street, and I say, 'That's not the way to do it'.' Mr Trump said he had 'spoken to president Putin a lot. I always got along with him very well', but was now 'very disappointed in him'. Since Mr Trump started his second term at the White House in January, Ukraine has urged him to put more pressure on Russia to abandon its full-scale invasion of almost three-and-a-half years, which he said he would be able to end 'in one day' during his re-election campaign. Kyiv agreed in March to a US proposal for a full 30-day ceasefire if Russia also pledged to stop fighting, but over summer the Kremlin's forces have intensified ground attacks on eastern Ukraine and drone and missile strikes across the country. Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy , quickly thanked Mr Trump on social media 'for standing firm and delivering a clear message of peace through strength' and for 'shortening the timeline he gave Putin, because he believes the answer is obvious'. 'Putin respects only power – and that message is loud and clear. When America leads with strength, others think twice,' Mr Yermak said. Mr Zelenskiy is pushing for a peace summit with Putin, but says Ukraine will not accept terms that would amount to capitulation – including demands currently set out by Moscow. The Kremlin insists it respects Mr Trump's push for peace and is willing to hold talks, but only when Ukraine accepts the permanent occupation of five of its regions, abandons any hope of joining Nato and complies with other restrictions on its sovereignty. Mr Trump announced on July 14th he would impose 'severe' tariffs on some Russian exports and on countries that buy them unless a peace deal was agreed within 50 days. The main target would be oil, which is still a huge revenue-earner for the Kremlin and a major contributor to its war chest. Russia's army enjoys a large advantage over Kyiv's forces in numbers and arms supplies and it continues to make slow gains in parts of eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian troops are holding their ground in most areas and claim to have retaken some territory in the northern border region of Sumy in recent days. Russian national airline Aeroflot cancelled dozens of flights on Monday due to what it called an IT fault. Two pro-Ukrainian hacker groups said they had destroyed thousands of the company's servers and stolen a vast amount of passenger and other data.
Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
How the EU's ‘lopsided' US trade deal was done
The European Commission's main man on trade, Maros Sefcovic , sat across from US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in mid-February. Earlier that week Lutnick, the man who would be charged with overseeing Donald Trump' s radical trade agenda, had been confirmed in the Senate. Keen to avoid the economic turmoil of tariffs Trump had spoken often and fondly about on the campaign trail, Sefcovic made Lutnick an offer. The EU and the US could both agree to drop pre-existing tariffs each charged the other on the trade of cars and other industrial goods. The proposal got no traction. READ MORE [ EU-US tariffs deal at 15% preferable to 'ruinous' trade war, says Taoiseach Opens in new window ] Five months on and Sefcovic was again sitting across from Lutnick, this time in the ballroom of Trump's Turnberry golf resort in Scotland on Sunday, where commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Trump cut a deal on tariffs. The agreement spares the world an imminent trade war between the European Union and the United States, but possibly only delays fights on some other fronts. The EU agreed to accept import taxes of 15 per cent on practically all products sold to the US, as the price of avoiding even higher rates Trump had threatened to levy on transatlantic trade from August 1st. The commission, the union's executive arm that negotiated the deal on behalf of the 27 EU states, secured commitments that steeper rates on cars would be brought down. Future US tariffs expected on pharmaceutical exports and semiconductors, would be capped at 15 per cent as well. Several intensive summer weeks of talks at a more technical level involving officials, and between the two political interlocutors Lutnick and Sefcovic, had brought a possible landing zone for a deal into view. However, a lot hung on what would happen when Trump and von der Leyen sat down together. The head of the commission agreed to fly to Scotland, where Trump was on a five-day visit that started at one of his golf courses. Officials were hopeful, but it was not clear when the EU delegation walked into the room if they would come out with a deal. 'It was a real negotiating session,' a senior commission official said. Trump's opening position at the start of the meeting was that the EU should suck up tariffs of 30 per cent, to do business with the US. The EU team of von der Leyen, her trusted adviser Bjoern Seibert, two commission trade officials, and Sefcovic, had been prepared for Trump to open with a big number. The US president dropped his tariff demand to 21 per cent, before settling on 15 per cent. That figure had largely been teed-up by EU and US officials in the days before the crunch meeting in Scotland. 'We stayed very firm on agriculture and other issues. There were a lot of moving parts, agriculture was not one of them, [or] food safety rules and our digital legislation,' the senior commission source said of those final talks. The EU had been adamant since the start that changes to its rules barring US chlorine-washed chicken or hormone-treated beef from the European market were off-limits. The EU also ruled out Trump's demands that the bloc pare back its strict regulations of the online sphere and scrap its system of charging value added tax (VAT) on goods. European businesses have faced across-the-board tariffs of 10 per cent since Trump's 'liberation day' announcement on 2nd April. Backlash from the financial market in the days afterwards forced Trump to delay higher rates he wanted to charge on US trading partners. The EU-US agreement is light on specific detail, but ends speculation about what final tariff rate EU states would end up paying. Not everybody is happy. French prime minister François Bayrou, a long-time ally of centrist president Emmanuel Macron, labelled it a 'submission' by the EU. A former EU trade commissioner who was in the Berlaymont during Trump's first term, Cecilia Malmström, said the union should have taken a tougher stance from the outset. German chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, two EU leaders who had actively been pushing for a quick, ugly deal over a perfect one, welcomed the agreement. Speaking in Brussels on Monday, Sefcovic said the alternative would have been a damaging trade war between the two economic heavyweights. Trump's threatened duties of 30 per cent would have made much of the trade that currently crosses the Atlantic to the US market unviable. Some five million jobs in Europe would be at 'great risk' in such a scenario, the commissioner said. There were still some people that seemed to believe things could go back to how they were before Trump rolled out his sweeping tariff agenda, he said. 'It is quite obvious that the world which was there before the 2nd of April is gone, and we simply need to adjust,' Sefcovic said. One key constituency likely on von der Leyen's mind throughout the negotiations has been the German automobile industry, who rely on big exports of BMW, Volkswagen and other cars to the US. Cars were a politically contentious point of the talks. Trump has long complained that a lot more EU-made cars are sold in the US, than American vehicles are bought by Europeans. On that front the EU side can point to something of a win. The agreement delivered by the commission president will cut the total US tariff rate on cars from 27.5 per cent, down to that blanket 15 per cent levy. Imports of steel and aluminium, another sector Trump had targeted with specific tariffs, will continue to be subject to higher rates of 50 per cent. However, a quota system that allows the EU to sell a certain amount of steel and aluminium products to the US at lower rates is being worked out. The commission offered to do away with lower, pre-existing tariffs the EU charges on a range of products, as a further sweetener to Trump. That is expected to remove trade levies of between one and four per cent on US exports of nuts, processed and raw fish, cheese and some dairy, and pet food. The EU also committed to buy hundreds of billions of euros of liquefied natural gas, oil and nuclear power from the US over the coming years, as Europe weans itself off energy supplied by Russia. Bernd Lange, a centre-left German MEP who heads the European Parliament's trade committee, said the deal was 'lopsided' in favour of the US, with many concessions that were difficult to accept. The EU did negotiate some relief from Trump's hefty 15 per cent tariffs. Aircraft and plane parts sold to the US will avoid tariffs, as will some generic pharmaceutical products and medical devices. Negotiations are continuing to extend those tariff exemptions to the spirits and wine industry. 'We seem to be more advanced on spirits than on wines, but we are continuing the engagement,' a senior EU official involved in ongoing talks said. Senior commission officials, von der Leyen, and Sefcovic are all adamant that the truce caps any future US tariffs on pharmaceuticals at 15 per cent. As one of Europe's major exports to the US from Ireland and other countries, the fate of the industry in the talks had been a concern of several governments. Trump himself had indicated pharma would not be part of the deal, when speaking to reporters minutes before the meeting with von der Leyen started. The president still plans to pressure pharmaceutical companies to shift manufacturing capacity, jobs and corporate tax revenue to the US. A US trade probe (known as a Section 232 investigation) is due to conclude shortly, which will provide extra cover for Trump to hit the sector with tariffs for the first time. Sefcovic said he believed the US administration would 'honour' its commitment that those coming import taxes would not be higher than 15 per cent. A final judgment on the deal the EU has agreed with the US will probably hinge on whether Trump keeps his word on that or not.
Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
EU-US trade deal: Ursula von der Leyen stooped to conquer
The trade deal agreed between the United States and the European Union on Sunday is on its face a humiliation for Europe and a triumph for Donald Trump 's strong-arm tariff diplomacy . But in acknowledging Europe's strategic weakness and giving Trump a public victory, Ursula von der Leyen may have stooped to conquer. The terms of the deal could hardly be more one-sided, with European exports to the US facing a 15 per cent tariff while American goods enter the EU with no tariff at all. The EU also agreed to spend $750 billion (€644 billion) on US energy products like liquefied natural gas (LNG) over the next three years, to invest $600 billion (€515 billion) in the US and to buy hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of American weapons. READ MORE The EU fumbled the negotiations from the start, dithering over retaliatory measures after Trump announced his 'reciprocal tariffs' in April. China was more defiant, matching Trump's tariffs and using as leverage its chokehold on rare earth minerals that many US manufacturers need. China and the EU were never likely to work together against the US, but both trading giants resisting Trump at the same time would have had more impact than either acting alone. Negotiations between China and the US, which continue in Stockholm this week, and the 15 per cent tariff deal with Japan this month left the EU at risk of being the last major trading partner without an agreement. A 15 per cent tariff will make European goods more expensive for American importers but the fact that it is in line with that of other major exporters should limit its impact on their competitiveness. Keir Starmer secured a slightly lower tariff of 10 per cent, but while Britain is a major exporter of services, it is no longer a leading goods exporter. [ EU and US reach deal on 15% tariffs, averting potential trade war Opens in new window ] The tariff, which will be paid by American importers, is high enough to raise significant revenue for the US government, but it is probably too low to persuade many manufacturers to move their operations from Europe to the US. And there may be less to von der Leyen's other promises than immediately meets the eye. She said that the EU would seek to spend $250 billion (€215 billion) a year over the next three years on US energy products, but inadequate infrastructure to turn LNG back into gas could limit such imports. And the $600 billion in new European investment in the US is less a promise than an aspiration, because it will be for businesses rather than the European Commission to make those decisions. Von der Leyen's deal doubles down on Europe's security dependency on the US. Photograph: Tierney L. Cross/ The New York Times [ Ireland 'no doubt' in challenging position over tariffs, says Minister Opens in new window ] The deal's most important function is that it averts a trade war with the US in which the EU could never have prevailed. Some Europeans talked tough about using the EU's Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI) to target US services and intellectual property rights, but the threat was always an empty one. This is because the US can meet any such dramatic escalation by the EU with its own ultimate and unanswerable threat: the withdrawal of the transatlantic security guarantee. Such a move would have been unthinkable under previous US presidents, but Trump has shown clearly that he has no ideological or emotional affinity with the idea of the transatlantic alliance. Von der Leyen's pledge to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars to buy more US weapons is, in one view, almost cartoonish in its illustration of Europe's vassalage. But it may also serve to bind Washington more closely to European security interests by offering the kind of incentive Trump responds to, a financial one. He has already made clear to Japan and South Korea that he sees the security guarantee the US offers them as a kind of protection racket and that the price is going up. His agreement to continue supplying weapons to Ukraine if the Europeans pay for them reflects the same approach to America's alliances. Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy understood this when he agreed a deal with Trump earlier this year to give the US a stake in the exploitation of the country's minerals. The idea was that, if the US has an economic interest in Ukraine's mines, Washington will be more likely to resist a Russian attempt to seize them. Von der Leyen's deal doubles down on Europe's security dependency on the US, potentially undermining any drive towards strategic autonomy. But after years of talking, that has so far amounted to little more than a commitment to reorientate much of Europe's industry towards defence, funded by debt. [ How EU and US news front pages see the tariffs deal Opens in new window ] Von der Leyen's deal with Trump reflects the primacy of Europe's current interest in maintaining and securing its partnership with the US. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/ AFP via Getty Images What Europe needs is a candid debate about its strategic future that goes beyond how to become a more self-reliant subaltern to the US. Fifty years after the Helsinki Accords, it will require imaginative but clear-sighted thinking about how to share the Eurasian land mass with Russia. The EU needs to look again at its relationship with China and whether its identification of Beijing as a partner for co-operation, an economic competitor and systemic rival remains the most useful one. The EU is now closer to China than the US on a growing number of policy areas, including climate change, the rules-based trading system and development aid. A strategic review would also examine the EU's relationship with the Global South and particularly how its influence is diminishing in Africa at a time when that continent's economic potential is becoming more evident. And the emerging reality of a multipolar world demands a new relationship with middle powers like those in the Brics based on mutual respect, rather than Europe's increasingly implausible sense of moral superiority. There is little sign of such fresh strategic thinking at the top of the EU, least of all by von der Leyen. In the meantime, her deal with Trump reflects the primacy of Europe's current interest in maintaining and securing its partnership with the US, unequal and undignified as it may be.
