MEPS to question McCreevy

CHARLIE MCCREEVY, picked as one of the European Commission’s four main power brokers, faces a three-hour grilling by the European Parliament today.

Appointed Commissioner for Internal Markets and Services, Mr McCreevy is expected to face questions on his free-market economic philosophy from socialist members.

His job will be to oversee the next phase of creating a single market in the EU by opening up services from insurance and banking to telecoms and electricity and implementing financial regulations.

The leaders of the EU 25 have left incoming commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, in no doubt that they want the emphasis for the next five years to be on the bloc’s economy.

They have watched while their plans to create the world’s most dynamic knowledge economy by 2010 have not just faltered but gone into reverse since 1999’s Lisbon strategy.

However, Mr McCreevy will need all his native cunning to convince members to play their part.

Time and again his predecessor in the job, Dutchman Frits Bolkestein, lambasted member states for refusing to adopt the elements necessary to make it easier to do business in the EU as they worked instead to protect domestic interests.

Mr McCreevy will be hoping to convince them that opening up their economies will benefit everyone in the long run, and he will cite Ireland as an example.

Mr McCreevy indicated he would build on his Irish experience achieving consensus.

“After 27 years as a member of parliament and as a government minister, I know that to develop and make policies work, consensus building is essential.

“The Irish economic miracle could not have been achieved without the successive partnership agreements with the Social Partners,” he said.