Ireland’s permanent representative on the EU transition team initially contacted the incoming commissioner by email rather than setting up a meeting or leveraging his relationships with key decision-makers, three officials said.
Two officials said senior diplomats should have played a bigger role in the negotiations, rather than leaving them to permanent members or McGrath’s team.
There is no master plan
A person involved in negotiations for the next cabinet member told Politico that the entire process has been far more chaotic than expected and that “no country has a master plan.”
They have had to deal with smaller-than-expected staffing in the Permanent Council’s transition team and changing rules for the recruitment of ministers, including certain criteria regarding gender, age, experience, rank within the EU civil service, etc. He said it needed to be met.
The official said the EU’s political bodies had also exerted a lot of pressure during the negotiations, but the situation had changed again as the negotiating team needed to comply with the wishes of the incoming commissioner and his own European Commission department.
Ireland is concerned about declining staff numbers in EU institutions, warning in its national strategy of a future “demographic cliff” as “many” senior officials retire.
The government said in its strategy that Ireland is “grossly underrepresented” at entry and middle management levels across EU institutions and that “if we don’t act now, that number will decline dramatically over the next decade.” ” he said.
