The way he contested the leadership of Fine Gael with Leo Varadkar in 2017 won him many admirers
Simon Coveney, then minister of foreign affairs, with the former EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier in 2022. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PAhad the leadership election all but sewn up with majority support from the party’s elected representatives in 2017, Coveney’s refused to duck out of the contest and his insistence that the membership must have its say won him support and admirers, and he went on to beat Varadkar comfortably in the vote among the party’s grassroots members.
His most significant period came as tánaiste and minister for foreign affairs as the Fine Gael-Independent minority government dealt with the fallout from Brexit in a series of increasingly tense negotiations. During this period, as deputy leader of the party, he would have been the natural successor to Varadkar. With the agreement of the Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil-Green coalition in 2020, however, he began to play a less important role in Government decision-making as the locus of power inevitably moved from the Coveney-Varadkar-Paschal Donohoe axis at the top of Fine Gael to the three Coalition party leaders.
He survived the cull of Fine Gael TDs in 2002, but moved to the European Parliament in 2004, winning a seat for Fine Gael in the South constituency. By 2007, however, he was back in the Dáil and on the party’s front bench. He was made minister for agriculture by Enda Kenny in 2011 when Fine Gael returned to government amid the devastation of the financial crash. He added the Defence portfolio in 2014.
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