The appointment of the Irish EU Commissioner-designate, Mr David Byrne, was assured yesterday following a confident and well-prepared performance at his parliamentary hearing.
Mr Byrne's ratification as Commissioner for Consumer Policy and Public Health was opposed only by the Greens and the United Left, who were disappointed that he had failed to back their call for a complete ban on genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
And while he was supported as "an honourable man" by the Fine Gael MEP, Ms Avril Doyle, she expressed concern that his lack of political experience might handicap him in internal Commission turf wars, notably over unallocated lead responsibility for such areas as food legislation and GMOs. The chairwoman of the hearing, the British Conservative, Ms Caroline Jackson, confirmed after the hearing that the committee's report on Mr Byrne would be "generally favourable". She commended his performance as impressive for someone coming new to a complex policy field.
The committee's only reservations about Mr Byrne are likely to be a perception of him as somewhat technocratic and lacking in political vision.
The head of the European consumers' lobby, BEUC, Mr Jim Murray, said Mr Byrne had made a good start. He particularly welcomed his support for a ban on soft plastic toys containing phthalates. The committee's endorsement was also welcomed by two Fianna Fail MEPs, Mr Brian Crowley and Mr Jim Fitzsimons.
In his opening remarks to the hearing, Mr Byrne said he was strongly committed to transparency as the only means to rebuild the confidence of citizens.
He promised rapid action on a White Paper on food safety and follow-through action to bring standards up to the highest in the world by 2002. He would work to improve the rapid alert system to ensure a higher degree of efficiency and that the system could deal with such problems as communicable diseases, contaminated blood products, defective medical devices, or dangerous consumer products.
Mr Byrne backed new measures on food labelling, insisting, to strong support from MEPs, that "there is a strong case for including GMOs on labels and even having GMO-free labels where this applies". He believed progress could be made on improving cheap and speedy access for consumers to the courts, and pledged more action on distance selling.
Public health policy was too dominated by the last crisis, he argued, saying that the Amsterdam Treaty would allow the Commission to be more proactive. He was concerned specifically about such issues as the increase in child asthma, the drugs threat, and the implications of an ageing population for the healthcare system.
Responding to a question about his support for European integration in the light of Fianna Fail's involvement in the Eurosceptical Union for Europe (UFE), Mr Byrne insisted that "my party has been completely pro-European since 1972 when it led the campaign to join".
On BSE, Mr Byrne backed the idea of the systematic but costly testing of carcasses across the EU to check levels of infectivity. He called for the gradual phasing out of the remaining antibiotic growth promoters, and pledged legislation to close loopholes in feedstuff regulations.
Mr Byrne appeared to contradict himself when he backed the Farm Commissioner, Mr Franz Fischler's justification for continued EU subsidies to tobacco producers - that to close down European production would have no effect on smoking but simply increase imports.
But confronted by the chair, who insisted that tobacco subsidies represented cash that could not be spent on prevention, Mr Byrne insisted that he would support such a view in Commission.
He did not favour a ban on alcohol advertising but expressed concern about youth drinking.
The hearings conclude on Tuesday when the Commission president-designate, Mr Romano Prodi, will meet parliamentary leaders to discuss their reservations about the team and a series of political concessions they are seeking. While the final form of a political agreement about future Parliament-Commission relations is unclear, there is now no expectation that MEPs will reject the new Commission when they vote on September 15th.
