Ahern had backing of 21 EU leaders for top job
Revealing that 21 EU leaders were backing him for the post, Mr Ahern said he felt could have easily got support from the remaining three countries.
Although he had been tempted to accept the job, the Taoiseach said he wanted to continue his work at home and declined to reveal the three non-committal leaders.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said.
Nonetheless, the Taoiseach did say that Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker and British Prime Minister Tony Blair campaigned to get him the post and he had the support of southern European and enlargement countries.
“It wasn’t something I wanted. I didn’t want to spend the next five years in Brussels. It’s not for me.
“I didn’t opt to work away when I was in my 20s, or my teens, or my 30s and I don’t want to do it in my 50s. I do not want to end my political career doing an interesting and very important and very valuable job around Europe,” he said.
“I have looked at it. I have had an opportunity doing it at the highest level and I wish Jose Barroso every success with it but it wasn’t a job I wanted and if I did I probably wouldn’t have got it probably. But that’s the way it is in life.”
Praise for the success of Ireland’s EU Presidency rolled in last week from across Europe. French President Jacques Chirac said Ireland’s EU Presidency was the best he had ever experienced, EU commissioner Javier Solana said the Taoiseach was the engine for everything that happened, with EU Commission President Romano Prodi hailing Mr Ahern for achieving unanimity on seemingly impossible issues.
“The hardest bit for me wasn’t the travelling, it wasn’t chairing the meetings, it was being familiar with the briefs,” he said.
Turning to the results of the local elections, the Taoiseach said the outcome was worse than expected but he was looking forward to working to recover from the losses.
“We’ll pick ourselves up. The country is doing extraordinarily well. Some people sometimes think it just runs on autopilot. It doesn’t. We have a challenge to put into it. It’s one thing I look forward to,” he said.
The Taoiseach also indicated he will be heavily involved in Fianna Fáil’s organisational changes ahead of the next General Election and that policy changes for the party were in the pipeline.
“I think Fianna Fáil have a number of things to do organisationally. It is not just about personalities. I think organisationally, and maybe in some policy areas, we have a real challenge and we have some things we have to change,” he said.
“There are some areas where we got complacent and I think it will be an interesting challenge and something that certainly stimulates my mind and my attention to give this a whack between now and the summer of 2007.”
