Diplomacy has been making front pages in recent days. Last Wednesday night, Ireland was elected to a two-year term on the United Nations Security Council, winning almost as many votes as Norway and significantly more than Canada.
ot wanting to rain on anyone's parade, but the UN role actually doesn't matter much.
To see why, consider two friends and allies of Ireland: Belgium and Estonia. Did the world suddenly hold them in higher regard when they landed the non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council that they currently keep warm?
Has either country become more influential as a result?
Have they used their time around the table in New York to advance their interests and values in any significant way?
Worldly readers will know that the answer to those questions is mostly in the negative.
That is not to say that either the Security Council or the UN system more widely are insignificant. They easily pass the most basic organisational test - if they didn't exist, they would have to be created. (The same cannot be said for all of the organisations in the wider UN 'family'.)
The world needs a global institutional framework for dealing with its problems. Process may be boring, but it matters. It can make a difference in emergencies.
The UN's imperfections are legion, but that reflects the anarchical nature of global affairs when almost 200 sovereign entities comprise the most important building blocks of international society.
Sitting at the top table, as Ireland has done seven times previously since it joined the UN in the 1950s, is appropriate. It can have marginal benefits, while not seeking a seat would signal not only a lack of ambition, but a disinterest in making a contribution to world affairs.
The holding of the seat from next January will boost Ireland's profile and prestige at the margins, and by enough to justify the €800,000 of taxpayers' money spent on the campaign for the seat. It is also a morale-booster for the Irish diplomatic community and the wider civil service, proving again that teamwork and focus on big tasks, such as winning a Security Council seat or running an EU presidency, are a strength of Ireland's public service.
The manner in which it was won is also important.
With a total of almost 400 votes available (each UN member country casts two ballots), Ireland won 128 votes, just two fewer than Norway, a country that has enough petrodollars to fill most of its many fjords - and money matters in contests such as these.
More importantly, Ireland out-polled Canada, a member of the Group of Seven largest industrialised countries, by 20 votes. That north American country has more resources and a much bigger global diplomatic footprint than Ireland. Its youthful prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who is one of the world's more recognisable leaders, had put his weight behind the campaign.
The Taoiseach spent most of last Friday at a virtual summit with his 26 EU counterparts. As someone who has worked for both the UN and the EU, the real action is in Brussels, not the UN's hubs in New York, Geneva and Vienna.
How has the EU fared in its handling of the pandemic?
This is not a straightforward question, not least because the European Union - like the UN - comprises different institutions which do different things. The EU's most important configuration remains the fora of national leaders and their ministers, more of which anon.
In the Covid-19 crisis, two 'supranational' (in the jargon of political scientists) institutions have had roles to play, the European Commission and the European Central Bank. The other two important ones, the European Parliament and the Court of Justice, have not.
The European Commission, which has next to no role in healthcare issues, did what it had to do in the emergency - get out of the way.
In the early stages of the crisis it suspended two important sets of rules which it is charged with policing - those which seek to prevent governments doing stupid things with their finances and those which actually do prevent governments from handing taxpayers' money over to companies and favoured industries.
Neither development was desirable. Both were necessary.
The rules on governments giving financial aid to businesses are vitally important in normal times in ensuring fair competition across the continent - but when whole sectors are at risk of collapse, then state supports can be appropriate. They are appropriate at this time.
The suspension of budget rules was also appropriate. With so many lives and livelihoods at stake, borrowing to throw the kitchen sink at the pandemic and its effects was and is the right response. Massive bills are being racked up by all governments in the EU. They will be paid back after the emergency.
The European Central Bank had a bad start to the crisis, despite the clear need from the very beginning of the pandemic that it would have to act much more pro-actively than the Commission.
In late February, when financial markets began to panic over the economic consequences of what was to come, the new ECB president, Christine Lagarde, said it was not the bank's job to keep governments' borrowing costs low. That fuelled the panic.
By mid-March, however, the ECB had changed its tune. Since then it has taken unprecedented measures, both to allow governments to borrow and to ensure eurozone banks have the wherewithal to lend to businesses and consumers.
As with the fiscal response, these monetary actions bring risks for the future. They will have to be dealt with in the future.
So what of EU leaders' collective performance?
As with the ECB, they had a bad start. Old divisions between the fiscally rectitudinous north and the high-debt south quickly reopened. In March and April, many hours of time was wasted discussing EU measures to help the worst affected countries. That happened despite those countries being able to borrow cheaply and freely after the ECB's course correction in mid-March.
Ireland, significantly, switched sides early on, joining the southerners. Even more significantly, Germany switched sides in mid-May. Despite being historically allergic to turning the EU or the eurozone into a 'transfer union', German chancellor Angela Merkel joined her French counterpart in calling for the European Commission to borrow money to be used to aid the worst affected countries.
Since then, including last Friday, all 27 countries have been trying to hammer out an agreement.
Four northern countries are holding out against the joint debt issuance.
Ireland objects to how little it will get, based on Commission's current proposals.
Many of the details will be argued over for weeks and probably months to come.
It is far too early to judge what sort of a changes they will agree. It is even harder to know how much of an impact it will have on the pace of countries' economic recoveries.
