Let Me Tell You: Series 2 Episode 1 — Bertie Ahern turned down president of Europe role
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Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said he turned down becoming president of Europe because he did not want to learn French and he would miss his home of Drumcondra.
He also said the Mahon Tribunal would not have been such an “annoying nuisance” to him had he accepted the job of EU Commission president in 2004.
“Life would have been easier, there is no doubt about it,” he said.
Speaking during an interview with the ‘Let Me Tell You’ podcast, Mr Ahern revealed he had the support of 19 EU countries to become EU president, the €335,000 a year job ultimately taken by Portuguese leader José Manuel Barroso.
Supported by then British prime minister Tony Blair, the French, and the Germans, he makes clear what stopped him going was the fact he is “a home bird” and the lack of a foreign language.
“There were two things: one, the idea of living in Brussels effectively all the time is not something that appealed. I am a home bird,” he said.
“The second thing is I didn't have a language. That didn't make me comfortable. I did French in school, but I would have had to do some crash course,” he added.
He said he then compared himself to Mr Barroso, who spoke six languages.
“Yes, I said to myself, it was a well-paid job, good conditions but ...”
Asked if he felt the Mahon Tribunal would have treated him differently had he gone to Europe, he said: “They wouldn’t have been such a nuisance to me.
"My problem with the tribunal, I was so busy as Taoiseach, I didn’t have time to be able to deal with the hundreds of letters that kept coming at me,” he said.
Mr Ahern accused the tribunal of sending letters to him late on Friday evenings “just to annoy” him.
"I’d spent my Sundays having to deal with this. If you're in Europe, yeah, I could have probably got the legal services to deal with it. I didn't have all the legal people that they did,” he said.
Mr Ahern’s interview was recorded before his return to the Fianna Fáil party was announced.
Following Ireland’s successful presidency of the EU in early 2004, during which the EU expanded from 15 to 25 countries, and Mr Ahern successfully negotiated a new EU Constitution, he emerged as the favourite candidate to become president of Europe.