Ahern says Cox not in front line for EU top job

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern firmly ruled himself out of the running for the job as President of the European Commission and also implicitly accepted that Pat Cox was not among the front runners.

Mr Ahern said that while other European leaders had encouraged him to take the job, he didn’t particularly want to go to Brussels and that his primary commitment was to Ireland and to his role as Taoiseach.

“I have a lot of people who would like to see me (become President), there’s no doubt about that,” he said, in an interview with RTE’s Charlie Bird in Mexico, during the EU summit with South and Latin American countries.