World News

Irish officials say they are in despair about their country’s fading influence over European Union economic policy, complaining Dublin performed poorly in the race for the best jobs in the European Commission’s new five-year term.

Five Irish officials told POLITICO that Ireland will be starting on the back foot after leaving it too late to negotiate getting their people into top positions at the new Commission, which began on Dec. 1. The government was distracted by political battles at home and had a strategy of trying to stay above the EU political fray, they said — an approach that cost it a louder voice.