Irish bid for CFSP job sparks argument

Date: 12/11/1998

By Simon Taylor

FORMER Irish Foreign Minister Dick Spring has launched a bid to become EU High Representative for foreign affairs, sparking a dispute over whether someone from a neutral EU member state should be allowed to hold the post.

Spring visited senior European Commission figures to present his credentials this week after winning support for his candidacy from Irish Premier Bertie Ahern's Fianna Fáil government.

Comments by Austrian EU ambassador Manfred Scheich suggesting that the Irishman would be a good candidate because he comes from another small, neutral country, have boosted Spring's hopes.

But the French EU ambassador Pierre de Boissieu has insisted that no one from a country which is not a full member of the Western European Union (WEU) can be appointed as High Representative.

Ireland is only an observer at the WEU. De Boissieu argues that, as the organisation's military role will gradually be absorbed into the EU, the High Representative must be a full member.

This argument has been angrily rejected by Irish Foreign Minister David Andrews, who accused the French of setting new conditions for membership of the EU. Andrews said it was the first time he had heard that a country had to be a member of NATO or the WEU to count as a full member of the Union.

In his bid to head up the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy, Spring will point to his international reputation and his close links with the White House.

Spring's supporters give him much of the credit for laying the foundations for this year's Northern Ireland peace deal while he was Irish foreign minister from 1992 to 1997. They say that Spring's credentials as a peacemaker would stand him in good stead if he were to secure the post of 'Mr CFSP'.

Many believe the High Representative's main task will be to try to defuse armed conflicts across the world, especially as the EU's ability to take military action is very limited, and likely to remain so.

Former Irish Foreign Minister Dick Spring has launched a bid to become EU High Representative for foreign affairs.