Letter from Brussels - June 2024

Who will be the president? And who will be Ireland’s next EU commissioner?
At time of writing (a week is a long time in politics, even in Europe), there is rising speculation that the road back to power for outgoing EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, may not be as smooth as she had hoped. While, for the moment, she has the backing of the European People’s Party (EPP) to be their nominee for head of the EU Commission, and assuming that the EPP will be largest party in the new Parliament, her coronation by a majority of MEPs and heads of government is not as concrete as she would like.
That doesn’t mean that the nomination from one of the other political groupings is going to beat her, rather she may be replaced as the EPP candidate if there is a feeling that she is not going to get the requisite political support required. And that is down to a series of missteps which have not gone down well in Brussels, most recently the appointment by her of a German politician to the role of EU (small and medium-sized enterprises) SME envoy. Markus Pieper was appointed to the post despite the view that there were better qualified candidates and von der Leyen was accused of favouritism. Just one day into the job, Pieper resigned. Most notably, France and Spain have, so far, kept their powder dry on endorsing her candidacy.
Meanwhile, the Irish Government will nominate its commissioner in the coming weeks. Outgoing commissioner, Mairead McGuinness, had indicated a preference to stay on in her role before Christmas, but it quickly became clear that Fianna Fáil was never going to give Fine Gael the prestigious post for another five years. It’s their ‘pick’ this time. So, there has been plenty of speculation as to who that may be with names like Michael McGrath, Charlie McConnalogue, Billy Kelleher or maybe the main man himself, Micheál Martin, being mentioned around Brussels.
The feeling is that if for some reason a deal was struck to leave Mairead McGuinness in the job, she would be in a strong position to become a Commission vice-president and take the agriculture portfolio if she wanted it as the EPP, of which Fine Gael is a member, has said it will demand in the divvying out of commissionerships. But barring a bizarre turn of events and depending on the shake out of the local and European election results, Fianna Fáil will insist on taking back the job last held by one of their own, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn who served as European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science from 2010 to 2014.
For EU political anoraks, its popcorn time. But more importantly for farmers right across Europe, the next Parliament and Commission will be the most important in a generation in terms of deciding what direction the legislative pathway ahead will go.