FIVE Irish MEPs intend voting against the new EU Commission in its entirety if Phil Hogan, Ireland’s nominee, features in the line-up.
Sinn Fein’s three MEPs in the republic, Liath Ni Riada, Matt Carthy and Lynn Boylan, together with Martina Anderson in Northern Ireland plan to oppose Hogan’s nomination when the parliament votes on the proposed commission en bloc this month.
Luke “Ming” Flanagan, an independent MEP for Midlands North-West, said he, too, will vote against the whole commission to register his objection to Hogan’s nomination and to EU austerity policies.
Sinn Fein’s objection to Hogan centres on his role as Ireland’s environment minister since 2011. Under Dail privilege last July, Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, said Hogan had serious questions to answer in relation to planning which made his nomination to the commission “inappropriate”.
Hogan is expected to be given the €50bn agriculture portfolio when Jean-Claude Juncker, the commission president, announces his proposed appointments this week.
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Flanagan and Carthy, who, along with Fine Gael’s Mairead McGuinness, are the only Irish MEPs on the agriculture and rural development committee, want to question Hogan on his political record when he appears before the committee this month. Sinn Fein and Flanagan belong to the same parliamentary grouping, the European United Left-Nordic Green Left. It has a total of eight members on the agriculture committee.
Carthy is likely to question Hogan about issues raised by Adams in the Dail, including Hogan’s decision to terminate local council planning inquiries ordered by John Gormley, his predecessor as environment minister, and appointments Hogan made to An Bord Pleanala.
The decision by Sinn Fein and Flanagan to vote against Hogan follows a letter written last week by Nessa Childers, an independent MEP for Dublin, to like-minded members of parliament raising “serious reservations” about his suitability.
Childers wrote to members of four parliamentary groupings, including her own 191-member Socialists & Democrats group, saying Hogan’s involvement in a dispute over housing for a traveller family in his Kilkenny constituency represented “a step backwards for equality”.
Childers said yesterday she will not decide how she will vote on the new commission until her parliamentary group meets to discuss it.
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Marian Harkin, an independent MEP for Midlands-North-West, said Hogan’s performance under questioning and the committee’s subsequent report will dictate how she will vote.
All 751 MEPs are entitled to vote on the block nomination of the 28-member commission after the various committees submit reports on their interviews with candidates.
Enda Kenny, the taoiseach, has told Juncker that Ireland would like to secure the agriculture portfolio. Expectations that Hogan will get it were boosted last Wednesday when a purported draft list of Juncker’s choices was published by EurActiv, a European news website.
According to the document, dated September 2, Hogan was allocated agriculture while Miguel Arias Canete, the Spanish nominee regarded as one of the main rivals for the job, was assigned the research and innovation portfolio.
Canete was accused of making “sexist comments” last May when he said that he deliberately underperformed in a Euro elections candidates’ debate because he did not want to be accused of abusing his “intellectual superiority” when debating with a woman candidate.
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Both Hogan and Canete met Juncker last Thursday.