I have just had a chance to dip into a fascinating book, Genocide and the Europeans, by Karen E. Smith (Cambridge University Press). Smith explores the European approach to genocide, reviewing government attitudes towards the negotiation and ratification of the 1948 Genocide Convention and analysing responses to purported genocides since the end of the Second World War. She considers why ‘some European governments were hostile to the Genocide Convention and why European governments have been reluctant to use the term genocide to describe atrocities ever since.’  (In some part, fear of retroactive condemnation for colonial policies is part of the reason why some countries did not ratify the convention until the 1970s and 1980s.) Through the book I learnt that we owe the very term ‘genocide’ (from the Greek word, genos, for race, tribe and the Latin word, cide, for killing) and the UN Resolution and Convention itself to Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959), a Polish-Jewish refugee in the United States and a fascinating individual. Coming back to the book, I’m afraid we Europeans don’t come out of it very well, not least because we don’t yet have a concerted European foreign policy but doubtless also because our histories are still too close.

Just under a year ago, it will be recalled, a devastating earthquake killed as many as 230,000 Haitians. An estimated 1.5 million remain homeless. Since then, Haiti and the Haitians have suffered tropical storms, a hurricane, food shortages and a cholera epidemic. Haiti’s economy is estimated to have contracted by 8.5% this year. The total cost of the earthquake is put at around $8bn. Gross national income per capita is estimated at $660 and the life expectancy of a Haitian man is just 59 years. To top it all, badly organised and almost certainly corrupt presidential elections triggered deadly riots at the beginning of this month. A special electoral commission has been set up to review the situation and is supposed to be reporting about now. In my last post about Haiti, I asked ‘was there ever an unluckier people than the Haitians?’ I have thought of writing again about the terrible situation several times, especially when the Western media started to publish cynical stories about the aid circus and the self-serving futility of much of the aid work to date (see here, for example: a story about a charity that built a single house springs to mind). In a terrible twist the UN itself has come under attack for allegedly bring cholera to the island through its Asian peacekeeping soldiers, leading Ban Ki-Moon to announce  the setting up of an independent panel to investigate the allegations. And all this is happening in a sort of electoral limbo. Two questions arise: what can we do and what have we done? The answer to the second question is that of the $5.3bn promised by big donors for 2010-11, only 12 per cent has been disbursed. My answer to the first question is that we should not allow the desperate situation in Haiti to slip back out of our consciousness and our consciences.  Haiti had a ghastly history before the earthquake struck. If there was a silver lining in the terrible events of 12 January 2010 it was that we could no longer pretend we didn’t know.

We watched The Devil Wears Prada this evening. The film made quite a buzz when it came out in 2006 and it is reasonable entertainment but it is not that good. The storyline (about a powerful New York fashion magazine editor, played by Meryl Streep, and her gauche assistant, played by Anne Hathaway) is thin and schmaltzy. Emily Blunt, playing Streep’s senior assistant, gets to say some good lines. Stanley Tucci, playing the part of the magazine’s long-suffering art editor, puts in a good performance as a cynical stoic. But my interest in the characters and the world they were portraying started to wane and, for me at least, the story line wasn’t strong enough to keep me interested thereafter. As to the moral of the story, is there one? I am not saying that there necessarily has to be one, but for people who are not fascinated by fashion garments and the legendary Anna Wintour (Streep’s character is loosely modelled on the US Vogue editor) the film feels almost like a documentary.

Brussels and Belgium have had a serious sprinkling of snow this weekend, accompanied by cold temperatures. My head is telling me that there are going to be transport problems and inconvenience for our members and staff this week. But there’s something about the way snow transforms a city, particularly when  associated with the Christmas season, and my heart refuses to sink. On the contrary, today we went to our local park, the Josephat, and found it transformed into a ‘winter wonderland’, with families building snowmen (there’s one in my picture) and children sledding down the park’s steep slopes. After an excellent snowball fight we set off home feeling happy and elated and, well, in a Christmassy mood.

There’s still a (short) week to go but for many colleagues, especially those travelling back to homes and families far away, this is their last day of work. So, a little earlier today I sat down with the members of my private office for a Christmas brunch. The second half of this year has been tough, what with the renewal exercise in September/October (30% turnover of members!), the bedding in of the new President and his team and the new Vice-Presidents, and the stresses and strains related to budgetary planning in a situation of uncertainty, to take but a few of the major challenges. But the administration rose magnificently to all of this and so did the members of my private office, who have to coordinate in an inobtrusive and efficient manner whilst not giving the impression of centralising and controlling for its own sake. It’s not an easy balancing act but they get it right all the time. Indeed, no secretary general could want for better colleagues nor a better team.

I know it’s truly Christmas when the annual staff committee comes around again. Once again, the Staff Committee and its personnel excelled themselves in producing a unique, joyous and delicious evening. As I never tire of pointing out, the Staff Committee’s Christmas Party, with its many volunteers, its rich cultural variety and extraordinary display of different cuisines and infectious good will is a wonderful advertisement of all that is best about the Committee and its administration. This year I was delighted to see so many of our members joining in the fun, including our President, Staffan Nilsson, who busied himself serving Glügg at the Swedish stand. A  note of optimism was struck by an Estonian colleague who circulated with a ‘start-up pack’ of Estonian euro coins (valid as from 1 January!). Once again, I have to say, the Czech biscuit makers excelled themselves with this extraordinary – and entirely edible – model of the Charles Bridge in Prague. Well done everybody!

I try to welcome personally every new official starting at the Committee and to thank and say farewell to every official leaving the administration (generally those retiring). This morning I said thank you and farewell to quite a few retiring officials and I was deeply heartened by the fact that so many of them intend to devote some of the free time they will now have to voluntary and charity work of one sort or another, particularly those who plan to stay in Brussels. This observation sort of follows on from my lunchtime discussion with Alain Deneef yesterday and it is also, clearly, a hidden benefit for Brussels and the Brussels Region of having so many European civil servants on its territory.

Earlier today the European Parliament approved the draft 2011 budget. This followed on the heels of a Council decision concerning adjustments to EU officials’ salaries. If you had been in the corridors of the EU institutions you would have heard a huge collective sigh of relief. We have avoided the uncertain prospect of so-called ‘provisional twelfths’ from January onwards and, because the two decisions were taken still within this budgetary year, most of the feared potential problems related to scrabbling around to find credits to pay the backdated adjustment have either been avoided or can be dealt with through transfers. But institution watchers should note that the way in which the new Lisbon Treaty procedure is beginning to materialise is quite different from the rather technical way in which the annual budgetary procedure has worked until now. Basically, there is more politics in it and the Heads of State or Government, through brokerage in the European Council, now also have a role to play. As an institutions ‘anorak’, I find these developments interesting. But as the Secretary General of a smaller institution, I find them worrying. Where, and in what way, can the members of my Committee make their voice heard? It’s not exactly flies to wanton boys stuff, of course. Nevertheless, it has definitely felt over the past two months as though our fate was in the hands of the gods…

I had lunch today with Alain Deneef, the secretary general of an organisation called Aula Magna. Alain was the prime organising force behind the Brussels Citizens University, at which I spoke (post here). A Belgian businessman, he has held top management positions in Canal+, Belgacom and the SNCB (the Belgian railway company), among other companies. Today, he serves on various corporate and non-profit boards and has developed a strong philanthropic side, particularly in relation to Brussels. He served for ten years, for example, as the director of the Fonds Quartier Européen, a corporate fund of the King Baudoin Foundation dedicated to the renovation of the European quarter of Brussels, and now he is devoting his energies to such organisations as the Aula Magna and the Citizens’ University. We discussed many ideas and aspects of how better to integrate European civil servants into the city where they reside and work. One in particular caught my imagination. The French Conservatoire Nationale des Arts et Métiers is a government-operated educational establishment that puts great emphasis on life-long learning. Inspired by the spirit of this organisation, Deneef is working on the idea of tapping into the under-utilised intellectual potential of European civil servants to create a self-governing educational organisation that would enable civil servants to lecture on their passions and skills to Belgian citizens. It is true that many European civil servants have ‘hinterlands’ and hidden skills or specialisations. An idea to watch!

This morning I chaired a meeting of our IT Steering Committee. It sounds drably technical but the Steering Committee is a vital part of the administration’s overall governance mechanisms. Pretty much everything we do involves IT in one way or another. A summary document listed 17 critical information systems, 16 important systems and 10 others, and this is not to mention applications such as those, to take a few examples, that manage the lighting in our offices, the telephone switchboard or the inter-library search engines. Nor have I listed the very many different software programmes – off the shelf or generated in house – that enable the Committee to function. A non-exhaustive list of critical systems would include payment of salaries and HR management, payment of members’ expenses and travel, budgetary management, management of mail and documents, inventory regulation, legislative processes, interpretation requests, document drafting and management, translation, websites (inter-, intra-and extra-nets) and communication (including e-mails and electronic documents). All of this – software and hardware – needs long term strategic planning and investment and shorter term management, including reaction to shifting patterns of demand and reduction of risk. We must also plan and manage jointly with our sister organisation, the Committee of the Regions. For the most part, we see nothing of all of this, though we rely on it heavily. That it should be quite so invisible is down, quite simply, to the excellence of our officials and technicians.