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Date Posted: 12:21:57 07/03/04 Sat GMT
Author: Lynn
Subject: Ireland w. plainspoken "Bertie" in charge, shines (San Francisco Chronicle)


www.sfgate.com        Return to regular view

Ireland, with plainspoken `Bertie' in charge, shines during EU presidency
- SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, July 1, 2004


(07-01) 02:11 PDT DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) --

In six whirlwind months it held the European Union presidency, Ireland hopped nimbly from success to success -- welcoming 10 more states, agreeing on the bloc's first constitution and soothing EU-U.S. tensions over Iraq.

Ireland and its plainspoken prime minister, Bertie Ahern, have won the confidence of a continent and overseen more progress than virtually anyone had thought possible in January. They now turn over leadership to the Netherlands.

"This has been one of the most successful presidencies ever," said Marco Incerti, an Italian research fellow at the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels, Belgium, the EU's headquarters. "The Irish presidency, and Mr. Ahern in particular, worked flat-out and have won praise from practically everyone."

Ahern, a former trade-union negotiator who led efforts to craft the 1998 peace agreement for neighboring Northern Ireland, shuttled among 24 capitals to help resolve myriad arguments over the proposed constitution. At a mid-June summit he forged an agreement that had eluded Ahern's predecessor as EU president, Silvio Berlusconi of Italy.

Ahern followed up that breakthrough by overseeing a coming-together of EU chiefs with President Bush -- capped by EU pledges to support Bush's handover of power to a hand-picked Iraqi government -- and then concluded a successful search for a new EU commission president.

Since the early 1970s, the EU has tried to promote a sense of equality by giving each member a turn running the show in six-month installments. That has meant, in Ireland's case, its ministers chaired five summits and 35 major intergovernmental meetings on subjects ranging from improving broadband Internet access to stemming the spread of AIDS.

In January, Ireland's term already looked certain to prove historic, because the formal admission of 10 states chiefly from the ex-communist east was set for May 1.

That turned out to be the easy part. As some Dublin civil servants planned expansion ceremonies and the extensive security surrounding them, others were quietly picking over the mammoth constitutional text that key states rejected in December.

"Bertie Ahern broke the process into two phases, which was very clever," said Brendan Halligan, chairman of Ireland's leading EU think tank, the Institute of European Affairs. "From January to March he did nothing but listen carefully to each state's concerns, to build up trust, then on that basis put a package together."

In the second phase, Ahern visited each of his counterparts on a grueling diplomatic road trip. "He made everybody feel comfortable at home. ... By the end of it, Ahern didn't have a single enemy in the 24," Halligan said.

It also helped, analysts agreed, that the country seeking a deal was Ireland, one of the EU's smallest with just 3.9 million residents. The constitution's key sticking points -- how many EU posts to allot to each member, and how high to set the bar for decisions -- generally pitted the biggest states versus many smaller ones worried about being pushed around.

"Ireland, as such, was seen by the small states as a reassuring, honest broker, not as a big bully trying to impose its own agenda," Incerti said.

Ahern's last task was to identify a candidate to succeed Romano Prodi as president of the EU's executive commission, the most powerful post. On Tuesday, after weeks of sounding out other EU leaders, Ahern won unanimous backing for Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Durao Barroso.

Tellingly, as Barroso was introduced, the richest tributes were for Ahern.

"He has been able to guide the union to agreement and indeed to unanimity on issues many believed would be impossible," Prodi said.


URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/07/01/international0337EDT0436.DTL
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