Successfully fighting off a Fine Gael leadership heave less than a year before Enda Kenny became taoiseach in 2011 did wonders for Phil Hogan’s reputation as an enforcer in Irish politics.
The former minister and European commissioner will need to channel that knack for back room political deal-making to land the United Nations job he has in his sights.
The Government has nominated Hogan as its candidate to be the next director general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), a Rome-based agency tasked with tackling world hunger. Hogan has been making manoeuvres behind the scenes for a while on this one.
The senior UN agency job will be filled by election next year, where all 193 countries who are members of FAO get a vote.
READ MORE
Hogan will know that his route to the UN job first runs through Europe. The Co Kilkenny politician needs to convince other European governments he would have the best chance of winning the election as the bloc’s joint candidate.
His record and connections from his time as EU commissioner for agriculture, and later trade commissioner, will help. Hogan is seen as a heavy hitter in Brussels and has already been quietly sounding out the views of his old colleagues inside the European Commission.
The gig was last held by a European in 1975. The current director general, Qu Dongyu from China, beat a French candidate to the post six years ago, in what was seen as a bit of a coup by Beijing at the time.
Hogan faces competition from Maurizio Martina, deputy FAO director, who has been nominated by the Italian government as its pick for the top job. The French government hasn’t decided if it will make a tilt for the position again. Paris could pose a threat to Hogan’s ambitions should they send someone into the fray.
[ The lucrative lobbying career forged by Phil Hogan in BrusselsOpens in new window ]
Locking in European support might be the easy bit. Votes in other corners of the world could be harder to pick up.
Hogan will probably draw on his work as commissioner pushing the EU-Mercosur trade deal when canvassing governments in South America. He is known to talk up the good relations he maintains with senior figures in Donald Trump’s orbit in Washington as well.
The UN salary of $265,000 (€229,000) a year would likely represent a pay cut for Hogan, who after leaving politics in the fallout of the Golfgate controversy set up a lucrative political consultancy business, which he would have to shelve if elected FAO director general.
In the Golfgate controversy of 2020, Hogan fell foul of the government and commission president Ursula von der Leyen over his attendance at an Oireachtas golf society dinner in Clifden, Co Galway, and a shifting account of whether he complied with Covid restrictions after flying into Ireland.
He might have been able to survive losing the confidence of Dublin, or Brussels, but not both, and resigned as trade commissioner in August 2020.
[ Phil Hogan’s consultancy firm earned €1m in 2024 for Brussels workOpens in new window ]
Coalition figures are wary of potential political blowback from this new UN role. While the Government has nominated Hogan and in effect put him on the pitch, it is unlikely to throw the diplomatic weight of the State behind his campaign.
