THE GOVERNMENT is closely watching the French presidential election for “clarification” on a pledge by the frontrunner François Hollande to seek renegotiation of the EU fiscal treaty, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has said.
Mr Hollande, the Socialist Party candidate, leads President Nicolas Sarkozy in opinion polls with five weeks to go before the first round of voting. He has been rebuked by German chancellor Angela Merkel for promising that, if elected, he would seek to add new clauses on growth and solidarity to the pact.
“We’re conscious of what Mr Hollande has said. We’re watching his subsequent statements to get further clarification,” Mr Noonan told reporters after a meeting with his French counterpart François Baroin in Paris yesterday. However, Mr Noonan said events in France would not be “the deciding factor” in the timing of Ireland’s referendum on the pact.
In France, the Socialist Party is in a strong negotiating position, as it holds a majority in the senate and could block the treaty’s passage through parliament even if Mr Hollande lost the election.
Mr Noonan said he had asked Mr Baroin how France proposed to ratify the treaty.
“He seemed to be of the view that it would be ratified by parliament, but of course we’re all aware of the fact that we’re very close to the French presidential election and he can only speak for president Sarkozy’s position.”
Dr Merkel has offered public support to Mr Sarkozy’s re-election bid, saying this was “normal” for parties belonging to the same political family, and has refused to receive Mr Hollande in Berlin during the campaign. However, Mr Noonan said Fine Gael, which belongs to the same European conservative grouping as Mr Sarkozy’s UMP and Dr Merkel’s CDU, would not be taking a position on the election.
“We’re part of the European People’s Party, and obviously we would be wishing people well who are also members of the EPP,” he said. “But there’s a tradition in Ireland not to interfere in other people’s politics, so we’re not going to say anything about the French election.”
Meanwhile, Fine Gael attempted to play down embarrassment at the unusual series of events at the meeting of the Oireachtas Finance Committee, when Fine Gael backbencher Peter Mathews’s demand for governor of the Central Bank Patrick Honohan to attend a meeting of the finance committee before the deadline for paying €3.1 billion in promissory note debt was put to a vote.
Fine Gael TDs Liam Twomey and Kieran O’Donnell were locked out of the committee room after they had gone looking for other Government deputies to make up the numbers. The doors of committee rooms are routinely locked when a vote is being taken.
One member of the parliamentary party claimed yesterday that Mr Mathews was brought “in front of the Taoiseach at 6.30 this morning”.
The consensus among Fine Gael TDs and Senators was that Mr Mathews would not lose the whip or be otherwise punished as a consequence of his actions, however.
Dr Twomey played down the Government side’s defeat but accused Mr Mathews of political naivety. When a whip was applied at the meeting Mr Mathews voted against his own proposal, but it was passed by a combination of Opposition members despite the Government’s large majority in the House and on the committee. “I think Peter was naive in the way he allowed himself to be manipulated by members of the Opposition,” Dr Twomey said.