European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said she will formally ask countries to put the names of a man and a woman forward to help her form a gender-balanced team of Commissioners
Taoiseach Simon Harris has doubled down on nominating former minister Michael McGrath to be Ireland’s EU Commissioner, despite an EU request for two names.
The nomination to become Ireland’s next EU Commissioner was the choice of the Fianna Fail party under the terms of an agreement between the three parties forming Ireland’s coalition Government. "I know President von der Leyen to be a very serious, a very competent and a fair politician," said Mr Harris, whose Fine Gael party is part of Ms von der Leyen’s EPP political group.
Mr Harris said: "Michael McGrath was in Brussels this week, I spoke to Michael last weekend and I know he’s taking that process extremely seriously in terms of preparing and engaging. "On other occasions in the past, we’ve sent one name and the name has been a woman. But we’ve had to make an assessment as to who we believe is the best commissioner to send from Ireland.
He added: “Ireland has played its part in terms of gender equality and the important issues around that and will continue to.
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