Convinced that the Commission has generally been guided in its preparation of legislation by a sense of the European common good, Garret wrote in 2002 that he could not “in fact recall any case where … Ireland’s interests have been seriously prejudiced by proposals brought forward by the Commission, and [he could] recall many cases where our interests have in fact been safeguarded by that body”.
From the start, for Garret, preventing the emergence of a Directoire of the largest countries dominating agenda setting and decisions for the Union was a firm objective. Given the recent fashion in some quarters of denigrating the elaboration of the structures of Europe, and of calling for an unwinding back to intergovernmentalism, it is worth bearing Garret’s perspective in mind.