Ireland - now considered one of most vulnerable countries in the EU (defense wise)

Use it as a naval base? Cut the undersea cables and connections, whatever suits them and it wouldn't be to run the country better - for us at least. It wouldn't be that hard to do as things are now. I could substitute UK or some more local interest sponsored from abroad equally too.

Defence against who??

Yeah they had enough trouble with Finland

I find this attitude embarrassing as an Irish person. It’s basiacally just expecting to leach off of other EU taxpayers. Let them do the work for us. My partner is Polish, much lower GDP/PPP per capita than us but they are investing and taking the new world order seriously

it was articulated excellently in another thread that the world order has changed now and we (the EU) have been seriously caught napping and need to make up the ground ASAP.

Since 1945 we have lived in the era of ‘Pax Americana’ (whether JFK wanted or not), whereby for the first time in history the foremost world power exercised its might with restraint and even benevolence which resulted in that power, the USA, accumulating more and more allies and ‘friends’ rather than triggering the formation of alliances and coalitions to try to balance its power (ie. The formation of the Triple Entente and Triple Alliance prior to WW1, or Pax Romana {117ad to 350ad} or Pax Britannia {1815 to 1910} being the ‘world police’ but having a nice conquered empire of subjugated peoples to enrich themselves on the backs of). That Pax Americana has ended in 2025. A vacuum will now emerge like in 1912

we need to invest and be prepared for ourselves in our own country and as members of the EU, which needs to further integrate and unify.

i dont know why you would come to the weird conclusion that we're leeching, but fair enough.

the end of pax americana is largely unimportant to me. and to the better part of europe, if you can escape the hype.

brussels will pour resources east, again in the case of poland. i never considered poland to be mooching when all that structural funding was boosting their country. and i dont see what we're supposed to be guilty of, especially as net contributors. sorry for being too far west.

I hope you are looking at Trumps actions and statements recently. Not a hope that US would come to our aid if Russia took over. His statement about willingness to remove US troops from frontline NATO states means he would hardly see it as important. Probably same for the EU they would issue a strongly worded statement no doubt.