Dimitris Dimitriadis

I invited the Committee’s previous President, Dimitris Dimitriadis, to lunch. I joined the Committee in 2003 and have worked closely with four Presidents: Roger Briesch, Anne-Marie Sigmund, Dimitris Dimitriadis and now Mario Sepi. I see them as repositories of experience and knowledge about the Committee and am always happy to listen and learn from them. Dimitris explained to me how he had adjusted back to ‘normal’ life after spending so much time on his presidential duties for two years. A businessman and entrepreneur, with a small family firm, it had taken him two months to re-establish the balance that had existed before he became President. I never stop stressing the point that our members are volunteers who receive no payment from the EU for what they do. Here was further evidence of the hidden costs they have to bear in order to carry out their duties. I should stress that he wasn’t complaining but whenever I hear these sorts of anecdotes I think that the Committee ought to be better known, if only because the enthusiastic work of its members provide a perfect antidote to the Euro-cynical view of the EU institutions as one big gravy train.

Jillian van Turnhout

After the breakfast meeting I had a long chat with a consultant who is working with our Communication Group to devise an updated communication strategy for the Committee and then, a little bit later, I spoke to a group of Irish visitors from the Philanthropy Ireland Affinity Group, visiting the EU and the Committee under the aegis of one of our most active and respected members, Jillian Van Turnhout. My talk was followed by a discussion that I enjoyed very much. The guests expressed healthy scepticism about some of the trends I had described and I was reminded of something Peter Mandelson once said, that Euroscepticism is a misnomer. There is nothing wrong with scepticism, he argued, which just means helthy questioning of things, or an absence of unquestioning acceptance – it is cynicism, with its purely negative and destructive intention, that should be criticised.

The official day began at eight-thirty with a working breakfast with the ‘enlarged Presidency’ (the President, two Vice-Presidents, the three Group Presidents and the Secretary General) to prepare the afternoon’s Bureau meeting and the following day’s plenary session. There were no big issues to discuss on this occasion and most problem issues had already been resolved. The (afternoon) Bureau meeting itself discussed several policy documents and finished promptly at six. Our President was happy and proud about this. In the good old bad old days, Bureau meetings could carry on until gone nine in the evening.

This promised to be a long and heavily-charged week, with all sorts of meetings and activities going on. The early morning was spent in the Directors’ Committee discussing promotions. Such meetings are always potentially fraught, but this one could not have been more collegial and consensual. It was followed by the so-called ‘pre-session’ meeting, where all of the concerned services go through the draft agendas of the Bureau and the Plenary Session to make sure that everything is under control and well-prepared. When I worked in the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe, such meetings were held early in the morning of every day when the assembly met and were nick-named ‘morning masses’! In the afternoon I spoke to a group of visiting civil servants on a sort of Erasmus programme run by the European Administrative School. Despite having the death slot – immediately after lunch – I encouraged  a number of pertinent questions about the political and administrative paradoxes the Committee faces. Then, in the evening, to the writers’ group. My ‘exercise’ was triggered by a question from my daughter about whether I could remember the first book that had made an impression on me. I could, and I imagine (or would like to hope) that most people can. Actually, my exercise is a bit of a white lie. The first book to make an impression on me was the Felix the Cat Annual. Somewhere there is a school photograph of me holding the book with a great big smile on my face but, in fact, that was the only time I ever touched the flaming thing. It was so popular that it was permanently out on loan and it was only lucky coincidence that it was on the classroom bookshelf on the day the school photographer came!

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One of the advantages of getting up very early is that every morning I can listen to Farming Today on BBC Radio 4. There is not much I do not know, for example, about the debate raging over bovine tuberculosis and plans to cull badgers or about the imminent threat from blue tongue and the calls for pre-emptive vaccination. This morning’s programme was about sheep farmers. For many, especially those rearing hardy sheep on mountainsides, it now costs more to shear a sheep (over a pound) than the resulting fleece is worth (under a pound). And so farmers are increasingly looking to breeds of sheep that grow hair, rather than wool, and others that naturally shed their wool rather than having to be sheared. Yesterday we walked again past the site where a beautiful curtain of black poplars stood until recently (see 27 March post). ‘It’s a crime!’ declared my better half. But in the end we agreed that, whilst it was a tragedy, it wasn’t a crime; just sheer economics. Soon, it seems, we might be saying farewell to the woolly sheep for the same reason.

In the evening I took the sprogs to see Wolverine. MARVELous fun, if you see what I mean. I kept getting distracted during the first thirty minutes because Hugh Jackman looked just like the young Clint Eastwood. The plot dutifully twists and turns and the special effects are brilliant. Afterwards, I got to wondering why there had suddenly been an explosion in Marvel Comics films and realised that a large part of the answer is to be found in the end of the Cold War; America’s superheroes now fight the enemy within. But if I were an American statesman I would be a little worried by this phenomenon because a common theme to virtually all of these films is the rogue element within the American military/intelligence establishment. I wouldn’t be worried about the commonality, but the fact that it is so plausible.

Well, I have spent today, as I promised I would, in the EESC’s flagship Jacques Delors building for Open Doors Day.  The atmosphere is always good on these occasions. It is healthy for us to meet the citizens on whose behalf we work. It is also healthy for us to be reminded that many (most?) of them do not know the difference between the EU institutions (we are frequently mistaken for the European Parliament). I duly had my photograph taken in our pet Trabi. But by far the most enjoyable part of the day for me was the two hours I spent with my President, Mario Sepi, and Vice-President, Irini Pari, in a debate, enlivened by its moderator, Pat Cox (that’s him below) with some of our visitors and with some of our EESC members at the end of video links in Ljubjana, Bratislava, Assisi and Paris. Cox, a former journalist (and President of the European Parliament) and currently President of the International European Movement, is brilliant at these things, and he got a genuine debate going across a wide gamut of themes that concern Europe’s citizens.

 Good stuff – and to be repeated.

Tomorrow, Saturday, 9 May, is open doors day for all of the EU institutions, including the European Economic and Social Committee. Why not come and take a look? You can find out more on our website at here. I must say, from my point of view the week will be beginning and ending with the old Eastern Europe. On Monday evening I watched The Lives of Others. Tomorrow, I’ll be spending the day in the Committee in the company of a Trabant, or Trabi. I’m told our model has no less than three engines in it – all equally unreliable. Come and meet the Trabi, or our President, or our Vice-President, or little old me. We’ll all be here to welcome you.

Whilst President Barroso was in the meeting with the EESC news came in that the Czech Senate had voted in favour of ratifying the Lisbon Treaty, and by a sizeable majority (54 votes in favour, 20 against and 5 abstentions). It was as though the sun had suddenly come out from behind a cloud. The Lisbon Treaty is not out of the woods yet, but it is definitely on the right road.

Teamwork

On 16 March European Commission President José Manuel Barroso asked the European Economic and Social Committee to provide input from its specific point of view into the deliberations of the European Union’s Employment Summit, planned for Prague on 7 May (see 16 March post). And so it was that today, in Prague, the Committee held a special pre-summit meeting with national economic and social councils and went on to deliver to President Barroso and Commissioner Vladimir Spidla (see picture) a letter setting out the Committee’s contribution. You can read the letter and more besides here.