I had just begun as a young PhD researcher at the European University Institute in Florence in 1981. I was walking one morning through the cloisters of the beautiful Badia Fiesolana, home to the EUI, when I bumped into a an older, distinguished-looking man, with a courteous smile and a strikingly luxuriant head of silver hair. He introduced himself as Max Kohnstamm, the outgoing President of the EUI. He asked me my thesis topic and we spoke for a while. It was only afterwards that I fully realised that I had been talking to one of those mythical figures, a Founding Father, for that was very much what Max Kohnstamm was. He is not be found among the names listed on this wikipedia entry but, nevertheless, Kohnstamm, who served (1952-1956) under Jean Monnet as the first Secretary General of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community (forerunner to the European Commission), was very much ‘in at the creation’. I last saw him on 14 March 2007, when he addressed the European Economic and Social Committee’s commemorative plenary session on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Treaty of Rome (press release here). Strikingly lucid and cogent, Kohnstamm reminded his audience that Europe’s integration process was a model to the world.  The interview with him, here, is interesting also for his explicit recognition (frequently overlooked) of the role the Americans played, via the Marshall Plan, in encouraging Europeans to overcome their animosities and work together. Sadly, Max Kohnstamm passed away earlier today, and so a living link with the origins of the European Union has been lost. But the foundations he helped to build stand firm and are his greatest monument.

I am just back from today’s meeting of the inaugural plenary session where Staffan Nilsson, a Swedish member and outgoing President of the various interests group, was elected the new President of the Committee. The two Vice-Presidents elected to serve alongside him are Anna Maria Darmanin, a Maltese member of the employees group, and Jacek Krawczyk, a Polish member of the employers group. When I began my career in the European Union, Sweden, Poland and Malta were not EU members. This, I thought to myself, is a graphic example of how the recent waves of enlargement have been so rapidly consolidated, for I have not the slightest doubt that the incoming team will be a worthy successor to the outgoing one. Since I served briefly under Dimitris Dimitriadis at the beginning of my mandate, Staffan will be my third President as Secretary General. The Lisbon Treaty has effectively extended the length of each presidency by six months but still, a presidency goes so quickly and I know that Staffan, like Mario before him, will want to hit the ground running. Chocks away!

Standing for the European anthem...

The Committee is back in business! This morning the doyen d’age of the Committee, Mr Goke Frerichs (German, Employers’ Group) declared the inaugural session of the fourteenth term of office of the Committee open, and he then dealt with a number of procedural points before the new assembly rose to listen to the European anthem – as so declared by the Committee’s new rules of procedure. A word about Mr Frerichs, a former President of the Committee. He is about to turn 87 but I promise you I had to go fast to keep up with him as we walked up the rue Wiertz to the European Parliament (we are holding the plenary in the Parliament’s chamber). As the doyen d’age he had the right to deliver an address to his fellow members and he chose, quite understandably, to express a heartfelt reminder as to why the European integration process started. He performed his tasks – procedural points, opening address – so well that we told him we look forward to him doing the same job in five years’ time!

The great Tony Curtis died last week. This evening, as a sort of reminder of what he was about, we watched Some Like It Hot. It’s a great film. The story rattles along. Curtis and Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe are all excellent (Curtis and Monroe were already box office attractions but the film made Lemmon a star) and the script is peppered with one liners. George Raft, playing ‘Spats’ Colombo, heads a gang of mafiosi villains who would not be out of place in a Gilbert and Sullivan farce. The film is rated as an all-time classic and Billy Wilder’s direction seems seamless. In reality, though, production was an ordeal of chaos and tension for everybody because Monroe, whose psychological decline had begun, was so disruptive. Shooting had to be done around her unpredictable availability and she was unpleasant to everybody except Lemmon. Even the film’s closing punchline (‘I’m a man.’ ‘Well, nobody’s perfect.’) was an improvisation, necessitated by Monroe’s absence. But it doesn’t show and she gives a great performance. All credit to Billy Wilder, then, for drawing such order out of chaos.

Not ours

Autumn is well on the way now. I spent most of today in the garden, profiting from the crisp, fresh air to give the garden, which has suffered over the past two years, a short back and sides. Every year I am confronted with the pear tree problem and every year I say I am going to do something about it. Except that I never do – until now. Please! Any fruit tree experts out there? Read on. In our garden is a pear tree that is probably as old as the house itself (1927). Somewhere back in the mists of time it was espaliered, so that its trained main branches cover half of one long wall. Despite its age, the tree is in vigorous good health and is a heavy cropper. Moreover, the pears, when I get to them, are good. The problem is that every single pear contains a worm of some sort. If I pick the pears and leave them to ripen, they rot from the inside out because of the wretched worm. So the only thing I can do with the pears is cut out the rot and cook the rest in a special juicer. This uses steam to break down the sugars and produce a rich and sweet syrup. (I made seven litres this evening with just a fraction of the overall crop.) Every year my better half says ‘let’s grub it up and plant a new tree that doesn’t have this problem’ and every year I reply ‘but it would be a great shame for it’s a great cropper – we just need to treat it, that’s all.’ So, fruit tree experts, what is the problem and what can I do about it? The future of my venerable pear tree is in your hands! Oh, and for a bonus, what’s the best time to be pruning a pear tree?

Hallo, handsome!

I wonder how many of you came across the reports of Andrew Marr’s statements about bloggers at the Cheltenham Literary Festival earlier this week. He is reported to have said that; ‘A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed young men sitting in their mother’s basements and ranting.’ ‘Citizen journalism,’ he added for good measure, ‘is the spewings of very drunk people late at night.’ Oh well. You’ve got to generate sales/viewing figures, I suppose. But, frothy blather aside, he was making a good point. The content of blogs and websites, especially anonymous ones, is uncontrollable and is therefore a sort of nirvana for the unscrupulous, the irresponsible and the malicious.

Thirty-eight years of faithful service!

This afternoon, in a relaxed and festive atmosphere, the Committee welcomed new staff members who have recently joined and bade farewell to a number of colleagues who have retired or are about to. The President was unfortunately unable to attend and so I played both his role and my own, making the speeches and handing out the commemorative diplomas and gifts. It was a genuine pleasure. I keep going on about the wealth of talent in our administration and such occasions provide glimpses of the rich hinterlands of so many of our staff. First on my list was Susanne Relvas-Schmidt, who has faithfully served the Committee since 1972 – that’s 38 years of service! It’s always invidious to single out individuals, but I’ll just name two to give a taste. Annie Madsen, was an Olympic fencer, and Miguel Paredes, our outgoing Head of Spanish Translation, translated such authors as Isaac Asimov before joining the Committee and – wait for it – Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity!

Last week elections took place for the EESC’s staff committee. I am very happy to see that workplace democracy in the Committee is in excellent health; 546 of the 758 eligible voters voted – that’s a participation rate of 72 per cent. According to an ancient Presidential decision (from the 1970s), it falls to the Secretary General to convene the first meeting of the staff committee after the elections. So this morning the new committee was duly convoked and, after a short congratulatory address from yours truly, got down to its work. Staff representation is foreseen in the staff regulations that govern all of the EU institutions but even if it wasn’t an obligation I would want the Committee to exist. As the regulations put it, such staff committees ‘contribute to the smooth running of the service’ and that is exactly how I see it. The high turnout rate gives the committee legitimacy and authority in voicing staff concerns and I am much looking forward to working constructively with it and its members.

The extraordinary rescue operation to free 33 trapped Chilean miners is over, to scenes of much rejoicing. The images of the Phoenix escape capsule, as it was repeatedly gobbled up by the earth and spat out 700 metres above, disgorging its precious human cargo, were fascinating and I snatched several glimpses during the day (the whole operation was broadcast live on the BBC’s website). I await with impatience the film that will surely be made of the whole affair. Nothing needs to be invented. The desperate search for work that brought many of the men to the mine in the middle of a desert. The miners’ fears about the ‘weeping’ walls. The collapse itself. The survivors’ seventeen grim days alone with limited rations and a solemn conviction that they were going to die. The rescuers’ determined efforts. The discovery. The drilling and all of the technical challenges. The first communications. The colourful characters and leadership  – not least of Luis Urzua, ‘Don Lucho’, the shift manager – above and below ground. Camp Hope. The media scrum. The mounting patriotism. The breakthrough with the rescue tunnel. The rescue itself. The wit and wisdom of the emerging survivors and their very different reactions. And I will happily pay to see this film, safe in the knowledge that during their record-breaking imprisonment so deep in the ground, the thirty-three men already agreed that they would share all proceeds from their experience equally.

The information days for our new members are now over and I think I can describe the event without exaggeration as a great success and a great experience. There was a lovely atmosphere that reminded me a little bit of freshers’ days at university. I was delighted three times over. In the first place, it was clear that our new members very much appreciated the welcome we gave them. Most of them have now got all of the inevitable but irksome bureaucratic formalities out of the way and can come back to the constitutive plenary session next week with their minds at rest. In the second place, I could see that our staff really enjoyed themselves. Last and not least, all of the time and effort that so many colleagues had invested in the operation paid off in style. I am proud of them. Our secretariat may be small (smaller than virtually all Commissions Directorates-General, for example), but its professionalism and its excellence shone brightly through over the past two days.