The main Opposition parties indicated last night that they would consider the proposal to reduce the size of the European Commission to 18 after 2014, although Fine Gael and the Green Party said they would prefer to retain the current system under which each member-state has a member of the Commission at all times.
The Opposition spokesmen last night agreed that the new proposal from the Irish EU presidency is designed to seek agreement on one of the key outstanding issues that must be resolved if the EU Constitutional Treaty is to be agreed at the June European Council meeting in Brussels.
Fine Gael's European Affairs spokesman, Mr Gay Mitchell, said last night that he would not entirely dismiss the proposal to reduce the size of the Commission. However, he said he did not believe it was necessary. He said he did not see the difficulty of retaining one commissioner per member-state, even in a Union that may grow to 27 members. "I don't see why having 18 is so much better than having 25 or 27," he said. "Many cabinets in Europe are that size.
"Bringing it down to 18 would be a retrograde step, although I wouldn't go to the wall over it, I wouldn't shoot it down completely."
The Labour Party's European Affairs spokesman, Mr Ruairí Quinn, was positive about the idea. He said he would accept the idea of reducing the Commission size to 18 in the year 2014 as "a practical and pragmatic suggestion".
Mr Quinn said the reduction in size to 18 would "reflect a consensus that has been around for some time". He said that while there was a widespread belief that a 27-member commission would not work well, it was also unreasonable to tell some new member-states as soon as they join that they can't have a commissioner. It was important for the new member-states to be allowed participate fully in the European institutions at the outset, particularly because the financial transfers to them from the Union would be less generous than they were when Ireland joined in 1973.
Therefore the idea of allowing everyone to have a commissioner until 2014 was reasonable, he said.
The Green Party chairman, Mr John Gormley, said his party's preference was that each member-state should have a commissioner. He said he feared that any proposal to reduce the size of the Commission would lead to larger member-states receiving disproportionate influence.
"We feel that it is very unlikely that the large member-states would forgo a commissioner so we have to look very carefully at this proposal. We want to avoid any position of inequality or a two-tiered commission."