An accusation that European Commission President José Manuel Barroso was interfering in Irish affairs by coming here to promote the Lisbon Treaty has been described as “inappropriate and offensive”.
Minister of State for European Affairs Dick Roche says the attack on Mr Barroso by former Green MEP Patricia McKenna at the Forum on Europe in Dublin yesterday exposed a double standard on the part of those campaigning for a No vote in the upcoming referendum.
Ms McKenna accused the commission president of "gross interference in the internal affairs of this State" and told him he should stay out of the country during the debate on Treaty .
But Mr Roche says that when the prominent anti-Treaty Danish MEP Jens Peter Bonde addressed the Forum last month, Ms McKenna voiced no such complaints.
"It appears that Patricia Mc Kenna only has a problem when the debate involves those who disagree with her," Mr Roche said.
The Minister said President Barroso was invited by the Forum to address it and had agreed to an open questions and answers session with all interested parties.
He also noted that Mr Barroso had clearly made the point that the decision on the Treaty rests with the Irish people alone.
"President Barroso quite correctly was willing to listen and engage in open dialogue with Ms McKenna but he should not have been subjected to abuse from her.
"It is becoming increasingly clear that the No campaigners want to be free to attack any person, party or organisation including European Commission members and as we saw during German Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit, any political figure, particularly from the larger EU member states that disagree with their viewpoint," he said.
While Ms McKenna was entitled to her views, it must be recalled, she has no democratic mandate, Mr Roche said, while the commission president has been selected by the 27 EU Governments and enjoys the support of the democratically-elected European Parliament.
At yesterday's session, Ms McKenna also attacked Mr Barroso's credibility, claiming the commission president had not given satisfactory explanations for his acceptance of a gift worth thousands of euro from a billionaire businessman who was later in receipt of a regional aid grant.
The accusation referred to reports in 2005 that Mr Barroso and his wife were on a private yacht in Greece.
Mr Barroso travelled to Cork City today on the second leg of his official two-day visit to Ireland where he was received by the Minister for Enterprise and Employment Michael Martin.
At a ceremony this afternoon, Mr Barroso received a presentation of the plan to re-generate the Cork Docklands Region and he was due to give a lecture at University College Cork.
Mr Martin said his visit to the City very significant and symbolic given the region had some of the worst unemployment blackspots in Europe for many years.
"Irish membership of the European Union has dramatically resulted in the economic turnaround of the fortunes of Cork city and the Munster region," Mr Martin said.
