As the Irish Presidency of the European Union comes to a close, watch a video of highlights below:

 

Here are some interesting numbers about our 6 months at the helm:

181 Days of the Irish Presidency
200 Estimated number of policy commitments achieved, including more than 80 in legislative form.
€960bn

Agreed amount for the 7 year EU Budget (MFF) including:

• €6bn Youth Guarantee to tackle youth unemployment
• €360bn on a reformed Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 
• €70bn Horizon2020 Programme for research and innovation
• €30bn for the Connecting Europe Facility targeting enhancements in transport, energy and telecoms networks
• €16bn Erasmus+ Programme for education and training
• €2bn for the COSME programme to boost competitiveness of the EU’s 20million SMEs 

€3bn for the LIFE programme to fund projects in the environmental area

2,477 Meetings and events were chaired by the Presidency across Europe including…
349 Trilogues were held with the European Commission and European Parliament
54 Council meetings chaired by Irish Ministers during the Presidency
185 Presidency events in Ireland
24,000+ Visitors brought to Ireland
11 Informal Council meetings held in Ireland
97% of delegates visiting Ireland in April for the Presidency rated experience as very good or good
37% of delegates in the same survey had never visited Ireland before

111 Hours were spent by the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Irish Ministers in European Parliament
76 European Parliament debates in which Irish Ministers participated
141 Presidency speeches by the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Irish Ministers
11 Record hours of European Parliament debate in a single sitting, set by Minister for European Affairs, Lucinda Creighton
36 Record hours spent chairing Council discussions, set by Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney
106 Associated Presidency events (average of 4 per week) held across Ireland and Europe

120,000 Air miles traveled by Minister Creighton as she visited 44 countries
1,042 Litres of tea and coffee consumed in the Media Centre during Dublin ECOFIN informal alone
55,000 Stamps commemorating Ireland’s 40 years of EU membership were sold

512,003 Visits to eu2013.ie as of this morning

1,525,163 Pages viewed

213 Number of countries recorded as visiting eu2013.ie website
335 Press releases published on eu2013.ie in 4 languages
13,816 Twitter followers of the Presidency twitter accounts @eu2013ie and @IrelandRepBru, the most followed Presidency to date on Twitter

14,000 Votes cast for the Irish Presidency logo
100 European Year of Citizens events in Ireland where…
30,000 People participated in European Year of Citizens discussions
929 Presidency Culture Programme (Culture Connect) Events took place around the world of which 509 took place across Ireland
420 were International Culture Connect events in other EU Member states and Croatia, Australia, Bosnia, Serbia, China, Norway, Switzerland, the Russian Federation, Turkey and Hong Kong
175,000 Visitors to the Eileen Gray exhibition in Paris, an average of 2,200 per day