Coveney feels pressure after EU’s Border move
QUESTIONS are being asked about the role played by Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney and Ireland’s new EU Commissioner Mairéad McGuinness over the botched EU Commission plan to seal the Irish Border.
The EU was forced into an embarrassing U-turn this weekend after trying to prevent exports of vaccines outside of the bloc amid a row with AstraZeneca after it revealed it could not supply as much vaccine as originally promised – but would fulfil its obligations to the UK.
Though the Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Mr Coveney moved swiftly to ensure the EU decision was reversed, unease is accelerating inside and outside government over the failure to foresee the surprise decision.
The diplomatically experienced Labour foreign affairs spokesman Brendan Howlin pointedly said: ‘Dublin was taken by surprise by the decision in Brussels. Although they went into overdrive to undo the harm it is unacceptable that a decision with such consequences for Ireland could have been made without detailed consultation with the Irish Government.’
Others were more blunt with one Fianna Fáil minister noting: ‘Simon was left looking like the woman rushing back into the house because she has smelled the cake burning. He did rescue the situation, but it would really have been better if it hadn’t [happened] in the first place.’
There was cross-party agreement that the proposal to close the border had come out of left field.
But Fianna Fáil sources still warned: ‘He needs to have his ears far more open: we need to be foreseeing rather than reacting to these things.’
Other FF sources were complimentary noting that Mr Coveney had played a key role in co-ordinating the response to what was characterised as an incredible ‘act of hostility’ by the DUP leader and First Minister Arlene Foster.
One senior Government source told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘The response essentially was co-ordinated by the Taoiseach and Foreign Affairs Minister.’
Another figure noted that despite the public furore, ‘behind closed doors it was icily calm’.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin, they said, ‘picked up the phone and spoke in some detail with Ursula [von der Leyen]. He talked. She listened.’
A senior figure said: ‘He was very blunt. She was told it was a misuse of the protocol when the deal was only a month old and it would cause all sorts of political ramifications.’
They added that Mr Martin ‘made it clear alternatives had to be looked at. They spoke a few times. It helps that he was clinically calm, and they get on very well.’
A minister also warned: ‘Von der Leyen has taken a serious reputational blow on this. Boris and the Brits are laughing at us. They are out of Europe getting the best vaccine deal and now this.’
New Irish Commissioner Mairéad McGuinness also came in for some implied criticism with one Fine Gael minister saying: ‘Would we have been bushwhacked in this way if [former Commissioner] Phil Hogan was around?’
‘Coveney needs to have his ears far more open’
‘Mairéad not as politically sophisticated as Phil’
Another minister said: ‘It is not that Mairéad did anything wrong or that she did nothing. It is that she is not quite as politically sophisticated as Phil.’
But a source close to the Brexit process dismissed criticism of Mr Coveney for not seeing what was coming down the tracks, saying: ‘He would have had to have been Mystic Meg. No one, not even [Michel] Barnier knew about this.’
Meanwhile, the Taoiseach yesterday welcomed the move by the EU to reverse its ‘mistaken’ use of Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Brexit deal, and said it was fallout from the row between AstraZeneca and the EU over vaccine supplies.
Mr Martin also rejected unionist claims the incident was a ‘hostile act’ by Brussels.
The Taoiseach said everyone had been ‘blindsided’ by the row.