Ireland would succeed at the forthcoming intergovernmental conference in Nice in retaining the right to nominate a European commissioner, Mr Pat Cox, president of the European Liberal Democrats, predicted at the weekend.
Addressing the Progressive Democrats' annual conference in Cork, Mr Cox said for reasons of legitimacy, Ireland wished to keep the right to nominate a commissioner and this view had been promoted and defended by the Liberal Democrats in the European Parliament and also at the Council of Ministers. "I believe we will succeed in this objective at Nice," he added.
Mr Cox said there had been a disturbing drift towards stressing the value of a more intergovernmental model of leadership for the EU. Ireland's interests would be best served however, by promoting the role of a strong and independent European Commission acting in concert with the Council of Ministers and European Parliament.
Although the Taoiseach and Tanaiste had insisted on maintaining unanimity in the area of taxation policy, it was to be hoped that this core demand, on which Ireland did not stand alone as a state, would be counterbalanced by a generous Irish willingness to contemplate significant changes in other policy areas. With regard to corporate and income taxation, the Liberal Democrat group in the parliament had stressed the merits for Europe at large of maintaining competitive systems.
"The insistence on maintaining a veto for income and corporate tax decision-making in the EU is not simply a narrow Irish self-interest, but arguably can contribute a dynamic in terms of member-state and regional development to the entire European Union. It is a perfectly respectable, though not universally accepted proposition and one which I expect to prevail at Nice."