Ireland and Germany are close partners in Europe and around the world. Our friendly bilateral relations are reflected not only in our wide-ranging cultural exchange and our shared values, but also in extensive economic cooperation. Germany is Ireland’s third-biggest trading partner (the largest in the EU), and Ireland is an important location for over 300 German companies based there.

State Secretary Thomas Bagger will travel to Dublin on 13 June with a view to further developing our good cooperation. Together with his Irish counterpart Joe Hackett, he will adopt the third version of the Germany-Ireland Joint Plan of Action. Since the adoption of the Joint Plan of Action in 2018 and its first update in 2021, bilateral cooperation between Ireland and Germany has developed and intensified considerably and many projects have been successfully completed.

The entire spectrum of German-Irish relations

The updated version of the Joint Plan of Action covers a broad spectrum of bilateral cooperation – from foreign and security policy, finance, business, energy, agriculture and research to civil society exchange and promoting the German language in Ireland. With seven German ministries involved, the German Government has a great interest in cooperating with Ireland.

We want to work more closely with Ireland in the future, particularly on renewable energies. The expansion of offshore wind power and the production of green hydrogen in Ireland offer enormous potential. We are therefore expanding research cooperation on green hydrogen between Germany and Ireland, for example. Moreover, Ireland and Germany want to cooperate even more closely on climate foreign policy in the future, for instance by expanding the Group of Friends for an Ambitious EU Climate Diplomacy in the area of climate security.

The third version of the Joint Plan of Action for Enhanced Bilateral and EU Cooperation sets the course for effective and close German-Irish cooperation at various levels for the years to come.