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Stop catastrophising about Michael McGrath’s European Commission prospects

As a minister, McGrath has demonstrated qualities and talents that European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will need in her new commission

Michael McGrath: a minister of proven talent. Photograph: Gareth Chaney/PA Wire
Michael McGrath: a minister of proven talent. Photograph: Gareth Chaney/PA Wire
Bobby McDonagh
Mon Aug 12 2024 - 07:00

There has been a considerable amount of catastrophising about the prospects of Michael McGrath, Ireland’s next European Union commissioner, landing a decent portfolio in Ursula von der Leyen’s second commission.

Some of the pessimistic domestic commentary reminds me of the story about the Englishman, the Scotsman and the Irishman facing the guillotine. The first two were spared by the executioner after the guillotine mechanism failed to function. The Irishman, when his turn came, looked up at the blade and said to the executioner: “Hold on a minute. I think I can see how to fix the problem.”

A scramble for jobs is inevitable in an institution that has too many chiefs, albeit due to the laudable principle that each member state has the right to nominate a commissioner.

Additionally, it has rightly been pointed out that two factors will not work in McGrath’s favour. First, there is the Irish Government’s decision to nominate only one person to be our next commissioner, rather than a two-person gender-balanced ticket as requested by von der Leyen. Second, there is the fact that the four Fianna Fáil MEPs voted in the European Parliament against von der Leyen’s reappointment because of her initial ill-judged response to the Hamas attacks last October that appeared open to the interpretation that Europe was giving Binyamin Netanyahu a free hand.

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I have no particular personal insight into von der Leyen’s current thinking. However, having worked in the cabinets of two Irish commissioners, it seems to me important to put those two negative factors in context and also to recall a few broader considerations that may work in McGrath’s favour.

Von der Leyen’s request to member states to nominate both a man and a woman as potential commissioners is entirely reasonable. Equally, the decision of the Irish Government, as of several other governments, to nominate only one candidate is entirely reasonable. Sometimes it is inevitable that two perfectly sensible approaches come into conflict. Von der Leyen, on the one hand, is right to press for gender balance in the European Commission. Our Government, on the other, was right to nominate a particularly able and experienced Minister to the commission, and to decide that it would be unreasonable to ask him either to step down, without any guarantee of a European job, or to stay on with the risk, if he were not chosen from a two-person list, of undermining his standing as a Minister. I imagine that von der Leyen understands that well, and also the complexities of coalition government.

McGrath has demonstrated in government that he is a team player par excellence and that he has a consistently co-operative and calming way of doing business

On balance, the Fianna Fáil MEPs should have supported von der Leyen in the vote on her reappointment. The bigger picture pointed strongly in that direction – a Europe facing enormous global challenges, an exceptionally effective commission president, and the importance of the centre ground holding in the face of populism and the far right. However, I would like to think that she appreciates the strength of public feeling in Ireland and elsewhere, including as it happens among the staff of her own institution, about the Israeli government’s behaviour; and that she understands that the Fianna Fáil candidates, in the context of a hard-fought European election campaign, gave commitments in response to that public feeling with a view buttressing that very same centre ground in the Irish context.

There are also three important positive reasons for giving McGrath a substantial job. The first and principal one, as von der Leyen knows better than anyone, is the challenge of managing and leading the complex commission. She herself is the one who would lose out if she does not deploy as wisely as possible the talent available to her. McGrath is a minister of proven talent. Over many years now, along with Paschal Donohoe, he has shaped and steered one of the most successful economies in Europe. Moreover, he has a specific personal talent that will be of significant use in a commission not always known for an its internal spirit of cohesion and teamwork. McGrath has demonstrated in government that he is a team player par excellence and that he has a consistently co-operative and calming way of doing business. Von der Leyen will, I assume, take such considerations into account.

Second, like the gift of a dog at Christmas, the majority on which von der Leyen must rely in the European Parliament was not just for one day, the day on which parliament approved her renomination. The majority she will need to get her policies approved and her legislative programme through is a fluctuating one that she will have to manage, manoeuvre, cajole and hold together in complex negotiations over five difficult years. The Fianna Fáil MEPs, through their political grouping, Renew Europe, of which Barry Andrews is now a senior member, will have to be an essential part of that majority.

Third, von der Leyen is well aware that the Dublin government that nominated McGrath is a coalition consisting of three parties: Fine Gael which belongs to her own European People’s Party group; Fianna Fáil which, in clear opposition to its own MEPs, supported her nomination, including in the European Council; and the Green Party, whose grouping at European level will have to be a vital part of her parliamentary majority in the years ahead.

We must wait to see what she decides. But let’s stop pointing out how to bring the guillotine blade down on Ireland’s excellent nominee.

Bobby McDonagh is a former Irish ambassador to London, Brussels and Rome