BRUSSELS ― Irish officials say they are in despair about their country’s fading influence over European Union economic policy, complaining Dublin performed poorly in the race for the best jobs in the European Commission’s new five-year term.
Five Irish officials told POLITICO that Ireland will be starting on the back foot after leaving it too late to negotiate getting their people into top positions at the new Commission, which began on Dec. 1. The government was distracted by political battles at home and had a strategy of trying to stay above the EU political fray, they said — an approach that cost it a louder voice.
“I don’t know if [the Irish government] had a plan, or what the plan was,” said one Irish official, who, like others in the article, all based in either Brussels or Dublin, were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive talks.
“We really underperformed,” said a second, saying the lack of key roles showed Ireland’s “waning influence and less relevance.”
Ireland has often been well-represented at the European level: In the past 20 years it has held the internal market, agriculture and trade portfolios, some of the most sought-after jobs. In the last five-year term, Ireland held the post of financial services commissioner, the presidency of the group of eurozone finance ministers, as well as the role of EU ombudsman and senior leadership posts in the Commission’s financial services and economy department.
Key adviser positions to European commissioners are some of the most highly prized jobs, allowing a country to monitor — and influence — priority policy areas and top politicians.
Dublin failed to secure appointments in policy areas considered important for the country, such as financial services, the EU budget and the economy, critics say.
According to a leaked list of almost-final cabinet appointments, seen by POLITICO, there will be around six Irish officials in key posts, including two on the team of Michael McGrath, Ireland’s new commissioner, who is responsible for the justice portfolio.
But Irish officials who spoke with POLITICO allege that those who managed to secure cabinet jobs “already had friends” within the system and campaigned for themselves with limited support from Dublin’s office in Brussels.
“We’ve been fully screwed,” a third official said.
Some people with knowledge of the issue told POLITICO that the EU process of getting people into jobs was chaotic — and that Ireland hadn’t fared any worse than other small countries.
The Irish permanent representation to the EU and a spokesperson for McGrath both declined to comment for this article.
Late to the party
Negotiations ran behind closed doors, from the EU election in early June until after the new Commission took office, with the situation shifting throughout based on the portfolios assigned, key votes on the overall Commission, and new rules for hiring to cabinets. The EU’s swing rightward following the election and its traditional cordon sanitaire to keep far-right parties out of top jobs complicated the overall picture, as did Ireland’s own election Nov. 29.
The Irish campaign to place its nationals in cabinet jobs was hamstrung by McGrath’s failing to finalize his top team until after his confirmation in November, according to officials.
“Everyone else was doing the wheeling and dealing,” one said.
Another described this as “a perfect storm,” because those applying for jobs with McGrath were uncertain about where else to apply, and the Irish couldn’t trade spots in McGrath’s cabinet for influential roles in other cabinets early in the negotiation process.
“He kept everything so close to his chest,” one official said, adding that the delay meant Ireland had to “take what it was given” by the time it could trade jobs with other countries, whereas other countries, notably France and Luxembourg, had been arranging deals since the summer.
It was “mad” that Ireland couldn’t place a staffer in the financial services cabinet, which in the previous mandate had an Irish commissioner, Mairead McGuinness, and an Irish-heavy top team, one said.
Above the fray
McGrath’s approach, one official said, was to stay “above the fray” as other countries jostled for influence. They said his reluctance to campaign aggressively for economic jobs negatively impacted the posts Ireland eventually secured.
McGrath “assumed his credentials would do the work,” one official said.
“The Irish want to be liked,” a senior finance industry figure said, adding that this meant Ireland did not campaign as aggressively as countries like Luxembourg, which is “better at ignoring” any backlash if its dealmaking ruffles feathers.
The Irish permanent representation to the EU’s transition team initially reached out to incoming commissioners by email, rather than setting meetings or leveraging relationships with key decision-makers, three officials said.
Two officials said senior diplomats should have played a larger role in negotiations, rather than leaving talks to the permanent representation and to McGrath’s team.
No master plan
An official involved in negotiations for jobs in the cabinets of incoming commissioners told POLITICO that the process overall was far more chaotic than expected, and that “no country has a master plan.”
They said transition teams in the permanent representations had fewer staff than expected, had to navigate changing rules around cabinet hiring, and had to meet specific criteria around gender, age, experience and rank within the EU civil service.
EU political groups also exerted significant pressure during the negotiations, while negotiating teams had to accommodate the preferences of incoming commissioners, and of the Commission departments they would be attached to, which changed the landscape again, the official said.
Ireland is concerned by the decline in the number of its officials in the EU institutions, warning in a national strategy on the issue of a future “demographic cliff” in the number of its staffers as “many” senior officials retire.
In the strategy, the government said Ireland is “significantly under-represented” at entry and mid-management levels across the EU institutions, and that the numbers will “fall dramatically over the next decade unless action is taken now.”
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