Ireland will enjoy the same influence on the European Commission as the European Union's biggest states if the Nice Treaty is passed, the Fianna Fáil MEP, Mr Brian Crowley, has declared.
Until now, anti-Nice campaigners argued that the treaty threatens to lead to the creation of a two-tier Europe, dominated by the five biggest EU countries.
However, Mr Crowley said: "It is clear that the smaller member-states in the EU, including Ireland, did well out of the reform of the commission under the treaty."
Currently, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and the UK each appoint two members of the commission - though each will lose one of these places from 2005.
Each member-state will then have one commissioner until the EU expands to 27: "This means that smaller member-states have the same rights of representation on the EC as larger member-states," said Mr Crowley. Once the EU is 27-strong, the members-states will decide the future size of the commission based "on the principle of equality and strict rotation between smaller and larger member-states".
