Europe and the Republic would suffer if a strong Britain was not at the centre of policy-making within EMU, the chief executive of Unilever, the consumer products group, said yesterday.
Commenting after the British government appeared to adopt a "softly, softly" approach on joining the euro, Sligo-born Mr Niall Fitzgerald said sterling would be better off within the euro, but he appeared to support Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown's "considered and cautious" approach. "I don't think it should happen tomorrow but sometime in the next few years. And I think it is important that the government begin to set the scene for it," Mr Fitzgerald said.
He was speaking at Bunratty Folk Park, after the official opening of the re-created HB family farmhouse. HB, the Irish ice-cream company, has been owned by Unilever since 1973. The corporation employs more than 1,000 people in its HB, Unilever Bestfoods and Bird's Eye Irish subsidiaries. Worldwide, it employs 250,000 people in 88 countries with a $46billion (#53.9 billion) turnover.
"I think Europe will suffer because I think Europe needs a strong Britain right at the centre of policy-making," Mr Fitzgerald said. "And if Europe suffers, I guess Ireland will suffer as well."
He did not believe the euro was suffering because sterling was not aligned to it. "You cannot have a two-speed Europe, you need to have an economy as strong and as important as Britain right at the centre."
Mr Brown, in his annual Mansion House speech in London on Wednesday, said a referendum on euro entry would not happen before 2003 when an assessment on convergence will be complete. His speech ended speculation on early euro entry by Britain, sending sterling's value higher against international currencies. Mr Fitzgerald, who spent his early life in Limerick and studied in UCD, was part of a delegation which put the euro entry case to Tony Blair in February. Commenting on the Irish rejection of the Nice Treaty, he said there was a general issue for the European establishment which had forgotten to continue to demonstrate the value of Europe, instead of simply asserting it. The European project was about popular support and assent, he said, and politicians appeared to have become lazy in achieving that.
Asked about the direction of Unilever which is undergoing a five-year growth strategy, he said: "We are taking the corporation where the corporation should be, which is growing fast, expanding and giving an increased and growing return to its shareholders and giving an increased and growing prosperity to its employees."
