A Euro-mandarin contemplates her penance

It’s a Friday evening. A long and busy week is over and people are heading home for a well-deserved weekend, but not yet the Euro-mandarins; oh no. We must stay a while yet and do our penance. One of the members of my writers’ group, Alice Jolly (author of What the Eye Doesn’t See and If Only You Knew), once worked briefly for the European Commission. ‘It was OK,’ she once told me, ‘but I was driven barmy by the signataires.’ What, the layperson might ask, are the signataires? Basically, they are files with a document of some sort inside, usually requiring a decision. On the front is a routing slip, showing the visas of those from whom the document came and everybody who saw it on its way to you. It’s a way of establishing responsibility and hierarchy. There has been all sorts of talk about paperless offices and periodically efforts are made in all the institutions to shorten the lists of names on the routing slips but the signataire is still flourishing, a little like Japanese pond weed. To understand why it is the Euro-mandarins’ penance, you have to understand the rhythm and culture of our administrations. Quite naturally, before people go home they like to get stuff (probably various signataires) off their desks. So off go the files, ending up at the top of whatever tree they’re supposed to climb up, where the decisions have to be made. Moreover, on Friday evenings this phenomenon is compounded by two additional aspects. The first is that everybody wants to get rid of everything before the weekend – again, perfectly understandable. The second is that there are always urgent dossiers for next week (which could be any week, of course). And so, on Friday evenings all over Brussels, Euro-mandarins are settling down in their offices to start their penance.

Béatrice Ouin

Over lunch in Paris yesterday, I chatted with Beatrice Ouin (French EESC member/Employees’ Group). She is a trained journalist and communicator and has for many years given communication courses to trades unionists. Recently, she started teaching younger people, around 18-20 years old. As an ice-breaking exercise, she asked her students to list the most important events of the past six months (she then intended to ask them what ‘important’ meant). They all listed the Chinese Olympics, naturally, but not a single student mentioned the Irish referendum result. In the past, we might have said that it’s because of the newspapers; because they don’t cover ‘Europe’ sufficiently. But these young people almost certainly don’t read newspapers on a daily basis. They probably get their information on the hoof, from the web. The internet is a wondrous thing but it raises fresh challenges for communicators. Beatrice recently authored a Committee opinion on the EU’s communication challenge (reconciling the European and the national levels). You can read it here. It’s well worth a read.

Together with our sister consultative body, the Committee of the Regions (with whom we share our buildings and some of our services), we have started to hold ‘Bike Fridays’. The initiative came from our excellent EMAS (Environmental Management and Audit Scheme) coordinator, Silvia. All those coming into work on a bicycle were rewarded with a bio breakfast. Since I come into work every day on a bicycle (yes, I am still sticking to my resolution), I went along for a few minutes to lend my support. A good time was had by all, I sensed.

I was in Paris yesterday for the fourth EU-China Round Table. These events, part of the EESC’s outreach activities (we have something similar with India), bring together representatives of organised civil society from both sides in pretty free and frank discussions on issues of mutual interest. This time a workshop on corporate responsibility was followed by sessions on trade and investment and recycling. I found the whole experience fascinating. The EU is China’s N° 1 trade partner and its primary source of imported technology, and the Chinese participants gave a strong general impression of wanting more structured dialogue in all areas of mutual interest. It was interesting to hear warnings on both sides about the dangers of creeping protectionism and the importance of better regulating the international financial markets. We were all entertained by the Chinese Ambassador to France, Mr Kong Quan, who, speaking in eloquent and witty French, explained how the EU-China relationship had changed fundamentally over the past ten years. The EU had previously dealt with a poor and underdeveloped country but one which was now more prosperous (and, my Economist this week tells me, whose economy will overtake the USA’s by 2030 and become a global military power by 2025). On the other hand, China had previously been dealing with 12 member states and now there were 27 and counting… In other words, it is not just China that is changing. Hence the importance on both sides to maintain a maximum number of structured dialogues.

An informing read

This afternoon I gave a welcoming speech at a conference on capacity building in the new member states in the textile, clothing, garment, footwear, leather and tanning industries. It was the culmination of a year-long project, supported by the European Commission, designed to help establish and consolidate social dialogue. We, the EESC, have a sort of outreach programme whereby we encourage organisations, including the European institutions, to see us as a welcoming host for such events, which can and frequently do greatly enrich the thinking of our own members. I had to sneak away after an hour but I wished I could have stayed. A lot of home truths about the approaching recession were voiced, since these are all, in their different ways, vulnerable sectors. But the basic and very clear message the speakers were getting across was that, whilst this period will be a test for social dialogue, it will also prove the need for such dialogue.

This post gives me a chance to plug an excellent information report published by the EESC’s Consultative Commission on Industrial Change about the future of the European textile, clothing and footwear sectors. You can order it for free or download it here.

I like to think that I coined a phrase at the conference. There were so many Secretaries-General and Directors-General on the top table with me so I began by saying ‘First, but not most’. Geddit? It’s the way I tell them.

Forty years on, the dream has become a reality

May I be among the last to post the news of Barack Obama’s historic win? There were many moving moments over the past twelve hours; Senator McCain’s extraordinarily gracious and patriotic acknowledgement of defeat and pledge to serve being much to the fore. But the image that will stick in my mind is that of the Reverend Jesse Jackson amid that jubilant crowd in Chicago’s Grant Park, shedding tears of joy. Jackson was among the last men to talk to Martin Luther King on that fateful balcony of the Lorraine motel in Memphis forty years ago and few know better than he the long road that American democracy has followed to get to this point. His lucid views on all of that can be read here. And here, in Obama’s own words, is the challenge he now faces and the inspiration he brings:

‘Even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime – two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.

“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep… But America – I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.” ‘

The Jacques Delors building

Long hours come with the territory. There’s no way out.  The days are full of meetings (all of them urgent, of course), leaving only the early mornings and the late evenings to deal with the mountains of files and torrents of e-mails. So most working days are fourteen hour affairs at the moment. That’s fine, but I do admit to one poignant moment in the evenings. At eight o’clock sharp the air conditioning is turned off and suddenly this building, the Jacques Delors building, goes very quiet and I start wondering what I can postpone to the next day so as to make my escape. I remember similar moments when I was in the complicated depths of programme management in the European Commission, and the thought consoles me. Throughout the EU’s institutions, the air-conditioning is going off and people are thinking about what they can postpone till tomorrow!

Julien Frisch quite rightly took me to task yesterday for using the word ‘important’ too lightly. His simple point: the more the word is used, the less important the issues will appear to be. It’s a fair cop. The problem is that I am consciously writing for two audiences. One is the world ‘out there’. the other, though, is the world in here, in the European Economic and Social Committee. What I was writing about – the new President’s set-piece debate around his work programme – was undoubtedly very important for the Committee, and that is what I meant, I suppose. It’s always a little invidious to single out one speaker in a high quality debate, but I found Professor Maria Joao Rodrigues’s remarks particularly incisive. As one of the founding figures of the EU’s Lisbon Strategy, she knows better than most that, as she put it ‘the EU’s model is not sustainable unless its international partners move in the same direction.’ Hence also, I would argue, the importance of the EESC’s external activities; arguing the case for strong and healthy civil society organisations to support strong and healthy democracies. There – I’ve used the word ‘importance’ again! Sorry, Julien.

The youngest ever F1 champion

This evening I watched the second half of the Brazilian F1 Grand Prix at Interlagos. It was simply enthralling and a great advertisement for the sport. Hamilton needed to finish fifth or above to clinch the world championship. His rival, local hero Felipe Massa, dominated the 71-lap race from beginning to end, taking a well-deserved chequered flag and, for a few seconds, believing he had won the championship. For, coming into the final bend, Hamilton was only in sixth place. But in the last few hundred yards he overtook Timo Glock and finished fifth. Massa, understandably, was gutted. He had done everything he could, but it wasn’t enough. If these two can maintain the sporting rivalry next year then we are in for a feast.

‘Dimanche‘, a Belgian newspaper, today has the following wonderful story on its ‘Belgique’ pages.

Un braqueur déguisé

Bruxelles – La police de la zone de Bruxelles-Nord a été appelée vendredi soir à Schaerbeek. Un automobiliste roulant avec sa femme enceinte dans une voiture BMW a été surpris par un passant portant une cagoule et une arme, qui traversait la route. Sur place, la police s’est rendu compte que l’homme était déguisé pour la fête de Halloween en braqueur et qu’il s’agissait d’une plaisanterie. L’homme à la cagoule a expliqué à la police qu’il a voulu remercier l’automobiliste qui le laissait traverser en lui faisant un geste de la main armée. Il traversait l’avenue pour se rendre au café ‘L’ambience’. L’arme était un pistolet à air comprimé selon le parquet. L’homme qui était selon ses dires déguisé en ‘braqueur de café’ a été interpellé par la police puis déféré au parquet. Il a été relaxé après avoir éré reprimandé.’

You couldn’t make it up.