COMMISSIONER ACCUSED:THE LEADER of the socialist group in the EU parliament has called for Irish commissioner Charlie McCreevy to be removed from his post, accusing him of contributing to Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon Treaty by admitting in the run-up to last week's referendum that he had not read the text.
In an often raucous debate on the referendum in the parliament chamber in Strasbourg yesterday, Martin Schulz referred to comments Mr McCreevy made that no "sane person" would read the treaty.
"This man goes to Ireland and says he has not read the treaty and tells people there is no need to read it," Mr Schulz said. "Is that a way of instilling confidence?"
Mr McCreevy also came under fire at the college of commissioners meeting in Strasbourg this week from fellow commissioner Margot Wallstrom.
Ms Wallstrom, who is in charge of the commission's communications strategy, accused him of contributing to the referendum defeat in Ireland with his comments.
According to people at the meeting, Mr McCreevy replied to Ms Wallstrom by reading out some passages of rather unintelligible text from the treaty. One source said Mr McCreevy was acting in a very defensive manner while another said he had replied with his usual rather blunt form of Irish humour.
Mr McCreevy made his original remarks about the treaty at a meeting hosted by the European Commission in Dublin on May 23rd.
Admitting that he had not read the actual text of the treaty, he said easy-to-read consolidated versions were available.
"I don't think any sane, sensible person would be spending this weekend or next weekend going cover to cover, and no matter who would do it there would only be a few experts in Ireland capable of reading it," he said.
In a subsequent interview with the EUobserver.comwebsite, Mr McCreevy said he had read a summary of the treaty.
"I would predict that there won't be 250 people in the whole of the 4.2 million population of Ireland that have read the treaties cover to cover. I further predict that there is not 10 per cent of that 250 that will understand every section and subsection," he told the website.
Mr Schulz also accused Mr McCreevy of undermining workers' rights in Europe in his role as internal markets and services commissioner. "The best social policy measure for Europe is to take that portfolio away from Mr McCreevy. He has fallen down on the job . . . You can't have a commissioner who conducts himself in this way," the German MEP said, adding that the EU was faced with a "real crisis of confidence".
Speaking to Newstalk yesterday, Mr Schulz said Mr McCreevy "went to a horse race" at Cheltenham rather than to an important meeting of the Economic Affairs Committee of the European Parliament.
European Commission president José Manuel Barroso, who had earlier addressed the parliament on the state of play following Ireland's No vote, played down the controversy yesterday.
"It's true that I didn't find his [McCreevy's] declarations very fortunate . . . but attacking the Irish commissioner is not the best way of fostering dialogue with our Irish friends," Mr Barroso said.
"Let's not go seeking easy scapegoats. That wouldn't be right," Mr Barroso said. "We are faced with a serious problem which we can resolve, but engaging in recriminations will not help."
It was the second time this week that Mr Schulz had attacked the Irish commissioner. On Tuesday, he told reporters he was "particularly disappointed" with Mr McCreevy's admission that he had not read the treaty.