I have no new job lined up, Cox insists

OUTGOING President of the European Parliament Pat Cox has received no offers of other work and still does not know what he will do next.

The Munster MEP for the past 15 years said he had not focused on what he will do when his mandate expires on July 19 but has a very full diary up to then.

He is optimistic that something will turn up. However, contrary to rumours and reports that he had directorships and other positions in his back pocket, Mr Cox said he does not have anything lined up and has not received any offers.

“I have not been inundated with a single phone call,” he said.

Mr Cox also lambasted the EU governments for the way they chose a new President of the Commission and humiliated two senior figures in the process.

The man chosen for the top Commission job by the EU heads of government, Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Barroso, met Mr Cox in Brussels on Wednesday in his first official engagement.

Earlier, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and British commissioner Chris Patten were the subject of a row between Britain, France and Germany. They went out of the running after Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said neither had sufficient support.

Mr Cox described Mr Barroso as a very good man for the job but said the process of selecting the Commission head was “inelegant and inadequate” especially in a Union of 25 members.

“Something that is clearly more transparent and fair to the individuals involved is needed,” Mr Cox said.

“For someone with the capacity and commitment of Guy Verhofstadt to have to go through the kind of thing that happened a week ago and what he had to endure was disgraceful. It should not happen to anyone,” he added.

“For someone with the qualities of Chris Patten to be stood around to take pot shots is a disgrace.”

Mr Cox refused to comment on reports that the Taoiseach did not support him for the Presidency, but he insisted he was not disappointed that he did not get the job.

“I feel very relaxed about it. I made a very sober and realistic assessment of my chances... I always regarded my best chance to be if they were seeking out a compromise candidate,” he said.

Mr Cox said he was very proud of the achievements of the Irish presidency.

He was happy too that the election battle he engaged in to win the Presidency of the Parliament two and a half years ago injected a sense of democracy into the institution.

He added that it was now time that EU politics was brought more into the national arena with parliaments, such as the Dáil, playing a greater role. This is possible under the new Constitution, where a national parliament can go to the courts if they believe the Union is taking too much responsibility.

However, he warned that it was time the Council of Ministers from the member states took responsibility for their actions and stopped blaming the Commission or a faceless Brussels for the decisions that they themselves take.

Mr Cox said it was now essential that the Ministers discuss and vote on new legislation in public. “Forcing every Council vote into the public is another act of democracy”, he said.