The manner in which the European institutions dealt with the economic crisis years was "extraordinarily cack-handed" and has hollowed out the centre ground of European politics, Labour leader Brendan Howlin has said.
In his five years as minister for public expenditure and reform, Mr Howlin oversaw the bailout and dealt with the troika of the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The Wexford TD said he raised his concerns with the troika in private, but did not speak out publicly because the Fine Gael-Labour coalition needed to rebuild international confidence in Ireland and bring public opinion with them.
Existential threat
“They made what was a very minor economic issue in the context of the EU in
Greece
a major international issue that became an existential threat to the existence of the euro itself,” he said of European institutions.
He added there was a "moral responsibility" on both borrower and lender countries to have regard to the consequences of this, but there was no understanding of this. "I think that many of the actions of the last five years across the European Union have hollowed out the centre of European politics and, in a perverse way, has given oxygen to both the extremes of left and right." This has led to a return to "fundamental nationalism" that is against the "spirit of solidarity and cohesion which was the bedrock concept of the visionaries of the European Union.
“Countries now look at everything through the very narrow prism of their own national self-interest. Those of us who are very pro-European need to assert those common principles again or we cede ground to people who want to return to a very nationalist vision.
Economic crises
“I have lived through a discussion with the troika on a three-monthly basis. I told them this, very directly, that they were hollowing out the centre of European politics and diminishing the capacity of centre left and centre right governments to deal effectively with economic crises in a way that would minimise the impact on their own people.”
The EU lacks political figures of the stature of former French president François Mitterand or ex-German chancellor Helmut Kohl who would not have allowed "these things to politically develop as they did".
"Every significant leader has been dragged into the domestic political milieu rather than stand above it. We didn't have those visionaries when Europe needed the most to drive a political agenda.
“My experience of the European Union is that practicality comes into effect if you have sufficient clout. If you haven’t got sufficient clout, even the most logical of cases is often left unanswered. I am not saying we were subservient but we didn’t have equal clout. Some people would say ‘That’s realpolitik – grow up and understand that’.”
Mr Howlin said solidarity "wasn't always done for us". "It certainly wasn't done for Greece. It certainly wasn't done for Spain or Portugal.
“When people mention to you, ‘How would the Germans react to this?’, it always jars with you a little bit. Occasionally with the troika, you’d hear ‘that has to be considered by the Bundestag’ and so on.” Such statements jarred with the principles of near equality within the EU, he said.
He also said the regular assessments of Ireland’s performance could be “like a very stern school report”. “It wasn’t saying: ‘There is a plan here that is working. Things are improving.’ It was almost like a very stern school report, as opposed to the solidarity of an organisation that was helping somebody recovering from an illness though recovery.”
