FRANCO-GERMAN RELATIONS: The Minister for Europe, Mr Roche, has rejected as unnecessary a Franco-German proposal to appoint a permanent president of the European Council, the forum where EU leaders meet. Mr Roche, who was attending the Convention on the Future of Europe, said that the Government remained open to persuasion about the merits of such a move but suggested that it would do little to improve decision making in the EU.
"It is not necessary to elect a president of the Council," he said.
Paris and Berlin proposed last week that the European Council should choose a president to serve for a term of up to five years and that the Commission President should be elected by the European Parliament.
Mr Roche said that the EU's six-month rotating presidency had advantages and disadvantages but added that most of the disadvantages were administrative while the advantages are political. He said its deficiencies could best be tackled by an administrative rather than a political reform.
Two other Irish representatives at the Convention, Mr John Bruton and Mr Proinnsias De Rossa, also rejected the Franco-German proposal. "It's an attempt to re-balance by stealth the relationship between the Council and the Commission to the disadvantage of the Commission," he said.
The British government's representative at the Convention, Mr Peter Hain, welcomed the proposal but stressed that the President of the European Council should be a chairman rather than a leader.
Mr Roche said that, at a meeting of small member-states on Sunday evening, the reaction to the Franco-German proposal was distinctly cool.