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Tánaiste Micheál Martin, speaking at a gathering of EU foreign ministers, has batted down the possibility of withdrawing Ireland’s European Commission nominee Michael McGrath in order to comply with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s demand for EU member states to put forward two nominees, one male and one female, for the top spots.
Pleased to have received approval from EU Finance Ministers at ECOFIN for Ireland’s revised National Recovery and Resilience Plan including €240M for our REPowerEU Programme, bringing the total grants for vital projects in Ireland to €1.15 Billion. pic.twitter.com/fVIsagFJps
— Michael McGrath (@mmcgrathtd) June 22, 2024
Speaking to journalists, Martin denied that Ireland should have “done it differently” regarding the timing of McGrath’s nomination following the emergence of the gender row earlier this month.
Former finance Fianna Fáil finance minister Michael McGrath is still expected to take up an, as of yet, undecided commissioner role in December, with von der Leyen understood to have offered better portfolios for member states that nominate female candidates.
Ahead of an August 30th deadline to nominate commissioner candidates, only seven out of twenty-seven EU member states have put forward female candidates, representing a considering drop from 2019, where just under half of the of the commissioners were women.
Earlier this week, Taoiseach Simon Harris spurred von der Leyen over demands for Ireland to provide an alternate female candidate, reminding the EU boss that it remained the government’s prerogative, codified within European Treaties, to pick their commissioner.
This supposed gender imbalance has unnerved von der Leyen, despite top EU positions being filled by women, including Estonia’s former female prime minister and Russia hawk Kaja Kallas. Kallas is expected to take up the foreign policy role for the next five years.
According to insider accounts, von der Leyen is under considerable pressure from Green and Socialist MEPs who have been keen for the Commission to replicate similar gender policies enforced within the EU Parliament on committees.
In previous statements to the press, McGrath set out for his aspirations to take the prestigious EU finance portfolio, putting it in direct competition with the right-wing government of Giorgia Meloni.
Should he be tipped to become the EU’s lead economic official, McGrath is doubtless to be questioned during parliamentary hearings by MEPs over the Republic’s leniency towards U.S. multinationals as Simon Harris resisted EU attempts to harmonise corporate tax rates earlier this year.
Von der Leyen was approved by a majority of MEPs to serve another five years in the Commission role last month with promises to move away from Europe’s previously sacrosanct green policies and to move towards further militarising the bloc.
In April, Fianna Fáil’s Senator Lisa Chambers lobbied for Ireland to attain the energy portfolio, with Ireland’s current EU Commissioner Mairead McGuinness functioning as Brussels’ top technocrat specialising in financial services since 2019.
While speaking at Thursday’s meeting of EU foreign affairs ministers, the Tánaiste outlined a joint Irish and Spanish effort for sanctions against Israel under the terms of the Israel-EU association agreement, saying that the Israeli military was increasingly conducting a war against the people of Palestine rather than Hamas.
Martin was joined in Brussels by the foreign affairs ministers of Ukraine and Turkey, respectively, with Ireland understood to have broached the topic of the reconstruction costs in Gaza during discussions with their EU counterparts.
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