As Ireland holds the rotating six-month EU presidency through the end of 2024, the nation has rolled out the most extensive domestic security and policing deployment in its state history, led by the national gardaí force, to host two landmark consecutive high-level gatherings this week: the European Political Community (EPC) summit and the informal European Council meeting, both hosted at Dublin’s Convention Centre on Thursday and Friday respectively. For weeks, sections of Dublin’s central business district have been cordoned off, leading to widespread public traffic disruptions, as security teams respond to a recent spate of non-credible hoax bomb threats targeting local schools and media outlets, a trend that follows a wave of flight disruptions across Europe last week triggered by similar false security alerts.
The EPC, an informal strategic leadership forum launched in 2022 in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s full-scale military incursion into Ukraine, convenes twice annually, with roughly 50 global leaders confirmed to attend this Dublin iteration themed “Europe – strong, secure, and connected”. Confirmed attendees include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, all EU member state heads of government, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, though a small number of delegations will be absent, most notably Turkey, which is occupied with preparations to host the upcoming COP31 global climate summit. The summit agenda is structured to cover four core priority areas: cross-border economic security, ongoing military and humanitarian support for Ukraine, coordinated responses to rising hybrid threat activity across the continent, and frameworks to bolster pan-European democratic resilience. Hybrid threats, a widely referenced operational term in recent European security discourse, encompass a spectrum of non-kinetic destabilization tactics ranging from state-sponsored cyber intrusions, critical infrastructure sabotage, and coordinated disinformation campaigns designed to erode public trust and pressure targeted nations without triggering formal military conflict.
A day ahead of the official EPC opening, Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin held bilateral closed-door talks with President Zelensky on Wednesday, where the two leaders publicly signaled their intent to forge a formal cooperative partnership to co-produce unmanned aerial drones for Ukraine’s defense needs. Thursday’s formal proceedings will open with an official welcome address from Taoiseach Martin, followed by the full plenary session, before all attending leaders move to a hosted official dinner at the National Gallery of Ireland. Parallel to the main summit agenda, a side event co-hosted by the United Kingdom and Ukraine for the “Friends of Ukraine” working group will take place on the summit margins, where President Zelensky is scheduled to deliver a detailed briefing to attending partners on frontline developments and ongoing humanitarian needs. In a separate, unconnected diplomatic track that falls outside the official EU summit framework, senior US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are set to meet Zelensky in Dublin later this week, an arrangement Kushner confirmed shortly after Ukrainian and Russian negotiating teams concluded two days of US-mediated peace talks in Abu Dhabi.
When the informal European Council convenes on Friday, the gathering will make history as the first dedicated EU leaders’ level discussion focused exclusively on artificial intelligence governance, with pioneering AI researcher Professor Geoffrey Hinton, widely known as the “godfather of AI”, lined up as a featured guest speaker to share expert insights on the risks and opportunities of advanced AI deployment for European regulatory and economic strategy.
Ukraine, AI and hybrid threats in Europe to dominate EU summits in Dublin
