Speaking in the Dail debate on the EU/IMF facility for Ireland Minister for European Affairs, Dick Roche, described the approach adopted to the issue by Fine Gael as ‘gombeen politics’ that will cut no ice in the EU Council.

The approach adopted over the weekend to the EU/IMF programme by various Fine Gael speakers on the EU/IMF facility has been nothing short of bazaar.

A series of Fine Gael spokespersons have argued basically that they could renegotiate a better deal with the EU and the IMF on the basis that Mr. Kenny has some sort of personal friendship with the German Chancellor.

The leader of Fine Gael Deputy Enda Kenny entered Dail Eireann thirty five years ago.  He became a member of this house only two years after Ireland joined the Common Market.  One would have assumed that Fine Gael, which regularly boasts that it is the most European of parties, would have, in the last thirty seven years have learned something as to how the EU operates.

A central feature of the European Institution arrangements is the independence of the Commission.  The Commission once it takes office operates on Europe’s behalf and not at the behest of any individual Member State or any individual political leader.  

The independence of the Commission as an institution is rightly seen as one of the protections in the European framework for small and medium states.

The independence of the Commission is something that has always been jealously guarded. The suggestion that the Commission can be ‘fixed’ undermines that independence.

The central point which has been put around by Fine Gael over the last five or six days is that they intend voting against the EU/IMF facility on the basis that if they are in power next year they will be in a position to cut a better deal for Ireland.  On Sunday Fine Gael announced it would vote against the deal and explained that Enda Kenny, because of his involvement with the European People’s Party (EPP), would have greater sway with the European Commission’. [see http://m.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/1214/1224285490474.html]

The basis of the Fine Gael proposition is that deputy Kenny and Chancellor Merkel are both members of the EPP.

Based on fact that they are members of the same European family Kenny seems to believe that he could have a word with Mrs. Merkel.  She in turn, on his behalf, will have a word with the Commission and everything will be fixed up.  The suggestion gives pot-hole politics an entirely new dimension.

The first point that should be made is that the European Commission can be expected to resist any attempt by any political leader whether the Chancellor of Germany or the leader of Fine Gael to interfere with its independent performance of its functions.

The second point given the recent focus of the German Chancellor comments anybody who thinks that the German political leadership would willingly load any additional burden on the German tax payers to assist an individual Member State is living in cloud cuckoo land.

The third point which can of course be made is that not all of the members of the European Commission are members of the same “European family” as either Mrs. Merkel or Deputy Kenny. [Even if he lives in the vain belief that those from EPP background could be fixed he has no reason to hold the remaining Commissioners in such regard.]

The suggestion by Fine Gael that a “fix” can be put in is in fact an attack on both the integrity of the individual Commission members and on the integrity of the German Chancellor.

There is no basis for believing that either individual members of the Commission or indeed that the German Chancellor would be willing to become involved in the kind of gombeen politics which Deputy Kenny and his party are advocating” Minister Roche concluded.