EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT:FINE GAEL'S group in the European Parliament chose not to wait for the election result when it said yesterday that Enda Kenny would attend an informal "summit" next week of centre-right heads of state and government.
German chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, French prime minister François Fillon, Belgian caretaker prime minister Yves Leterme and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban will attend the Helsinki meeting next Friday.
Hours after polling opened yesterday, the European People’s Party (EPP) said Mr Kenny would join nine national leaders and the chiefs of the top three political institutions in the European Union at the gathering.
Mr Kenny is an EPP vice-president. Fine Gael maintains the party’s links with Dr Merkel through the EPP will give Mr Kenny some leverage in his campaign to renegotiate the terms of Ireland’s EU-IMF bailout. During the election campaign he had a brief meeting in Berlin with Dr Merkel.
The EPP, which is the most powerful transnational force in European politics, has convened the Helsinki meeting to prepare for a formal summit of the 17 euro zone leaders one week later in Brussels.
The euro zone summit and a succession of finance ministers’ meetings come as EU leaders seek agreement on far-reaching reforms to the euro zone bailout fund and on economic governance rules in the union at large.
No deal is in sight in these long-running talks in which Dublin has been seeking a reduction in the interest rate for Ireland’s bailout loans.
However, EU leaders aim to strike agreement on a comprehensive reform pact at the next full European summit on March 24th and 25th.
Also in attendance at the Helsinki meeting will be European Commission president José Manuel Barroso, European Council president Herman Van Rompuy and European Parliament president Jerzy Buzek.
