To the Brussels Press Club this evening to listen to Baroness Jan Royall, Leader of the Labour Party in the House of Lords, deliver this year’s John Fitzmaurice Memorial Lecture (I had the privilege of delivering it last year). Like me, Jan knew John very well and for a long time. We cannot always have speakers who knew the man but there is a friendly tinge to the proceedings when the lecture is delivered by a friend. Jan worked with Neil Kinnock for a very long time and we became good friends whilst I was working on my biography. It was good to catch up at the dinner afterwards. Jan was particularly interesting on the restraints and limited resources of the Opposition in British politics and the frustrations that come from these. Her speech, meanwhile, was a critical analysis of the contradictory forces within a coalition which was formed out of post-electoral expediency rather than, as as historically been the case in the UK, to govern during or after some cataclysmic event (such as a war). At times like these I wish I was a political scientist again; there are so many fascinating things going on.

This afternoon I was audited to see whether I was fully up to scratch on the Committee’s commitment to the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS). The EMAS effort is a joint EESC and CoR initiative in the field of environmental management and sustainable development. After several years of hard work we are now approaching the end of our first EMAS cycle, which will hopefully result in the Committees being awarded the EMAS registration. External auditors are now interviewing a cross-section of colleagues at all levels throughout the institutions to evaluate our progress and our compliance with the EMAS regulation and with environmental legislation. The Secretaries General are audited as part of this process, in order to check how management is involved and supports the project. So I sat my exam and I think I passed. There were some challenging questions, though: if you get the EMAS certification will you continue your efforts with the same intensity?; you are proud of your achievements to date but weren’t these just the low hanging fruit? and so on.

Yesterday evening and most of today the enlarged Presidency (the President, two Vice-Presidents, the three Group Presidents and the Secretary General) met to discuss a number of important policy topics. They also discussed the 2013 budget drafting exercise together with the Committee’s rapporteur on the 2013 budget, Madi Sharma (United Kingdom, Employers’ Group) and the two other members of the Bugdet group’s task force mandated to help prepare a draft, in close cooperation with the administration. Today’s discussion was more about orientation and background but there is complete agreement on all sides that the Committee’s core activities and its core interests must be defended. We cannot, for example, not pay the rent (which is index-linked). We must provide our future Crpoatian members with translation into and out of Croatian, and so on. Such proposals as a 5% cut in human resources across the board make for good headlines but are disproportionately felt by smaller institutions. As I never tire of pointing out, we only have one accountant, one auditor, one doctor, one nurse. How can I cut them by 5%? As I also never cease to point out, the Committees are both already realizing important economies of scale through their joint services and additional synergies by resorting to interinstitutional cooperation wherever possible.

This afternoon I accompanied EESC President Staffan Nilsson to the formal opening of the European Parliament’s Parlementarium. The exhibition was declared open by EP President Jerzy Buzek and Belgian Princess Astrid. The exhibition has its detractors, not least because it cost a lot and came in over budget and behind schedule. Ambitiously high-tech projects frequently encounter such teething problems. But those will be forgotten. The Parlementarium is a significant achievement, innovatory in a number of respects. Because it took so long for the member states to decide on the official seats of the EU’s institutions, the latter have never been able to build purpose-built visitors’ centres: we have all been making do, converting existing buildings and hauling in volunteers from among our members and staff to talk to visitors (I remember talking to European Commission visitors’ groups in the musty, fusty, obscure heart of the old Joyeuse Entrée building in the 1980s and feeling slightly embarrassed about the whole thing). Now the EU has a ‘proper’ visitors’ centre. By that I mean, first, that it keeps visitors’ hours, rather than the hours of EU institutions – notably, it is open on Saturdays and Sundays. Second, it is equipped properly to welcome visitors in all 23 official languages of the EU. Third, it has been consciously designed to welcome families and younger visitors (and those with physical handicaps). A lot of the exhibits are fun as well as being educational. Fourth, it is deliberately accessible, being free and the sort of place that will repay repeated visits. Until now the so-called ‘European quarter’ has not been tourist friendly. Most visitors to Brussels probably see it on a bus tour. But now tourists will have a reason to come and to stay. Once the Museum of European History has been completed in 2014 they will have two reasons.

Stahl, Bresso, Nilsson, Westlake

At midday the Presidents of the Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee, Mercedes Bresso and Staffan Nilsson, accompanied by their respective Secretaries-General, Gerhard Stahl and myself, jointly signed the Committees’ environmental policy. Through the declaration the two Committees have commited themselves to further reductions in their impact on the environment, in line with the European Union’s overall commitment to this goal. The declaration is a joint one because most of the reductions we can make are in areas governed by our unique arrangement in pooling our resources in joint services. Some important reductions have already been achieved. for example, the Committees reduced their gas consumption by 30% in the 2008-10 period, and electricity by 10% in the same period. We believe further progress can be made and so today we solemnly committed ourselves and our institutions to continue with our efforts.

I received terribly sad and shocking news just after I reached my office. Former EESC President Mario Sepi (2008-2010) passed away at 7 o’clock this morning, in Rome, after a short illness. Mario’s mandate as President coincided with the start of my mandate as Secretary General. We had a tacit pact, for we were both determined to create a close and supportive relationship between the members and the administration whilst also driving through a number of important reforms. In the nature of things, we saw a lot of each other. Mario was a deeply cultured man with firm beliefs based on a lifetime career in the trade union movement. He had great wit and he and I had a lot of fun. At the political level, he was fast to realise the depth and seriousness of the crisis and took a series of initiatives to ensure that the European Economic and Social Committee played its advisory role to the full. Mario left the Committee at the end of his mandate but his old group, the Group of Employees, continued to rely on his expertise and I bumped into him quite frequently. I last spoke to him on the telephone just a few weeks ago and it is hard to believe that he is now gone.

Argentina's captain, Felipe Contepomi - one of the magicians

Like all rugby fans, my sleeping patterns have been badly disrupted by the Rugby World Cup fixtures, but all those very early mornings have been worthwhile. There have been a lot of thrilling matches, intriguing contests and some great, flowing rugby. This quarter-final weekend we were treated to some top drawer matches: Wales played out of their skin to send Ireland home; the French finally arrived and did enough in a thrilling first half display to put out a sluggish England (on Friday I wrote to a French fellow rugby fanatic that ‘If the French DO turn up on the day they should win. England look wooden.’); Australia somehow beat the rampant South Africans, the outgoing world champions and, whilst plucky Argentina couldn’t stop New Zealand’s progress, their braveheart defence was extraordinary. Next weekend we are promised two wonderful semi-finals. England, meanwhile, are on the plane home. Today’s newspaper coverage is violently critical of the team and of its trainer, calling for heads to roll. Nobody beats up the English quite like the English do.

Last Saturday Brussels was enjoying an Indian summer. Today, it has rained non-stop – a cold, penetrating rain, almost sleet. Perfect conditions, therefore, to do a cycling course. I kid you not. This afternoon I accompanied N° 2 sprog, proud owner of a new bike, and one of his friends to a GRACQ course on how to cycle safely on the city’s streets. We had to give up after a couple of hours, but by then we had learnt the basics. Under Belgium’s traffic rules, the cyclist can be both a vehicle and, when dismounted, a pedestrian. As a vehicle, the highway code and traffic laws apply – and not just priority from the right and the fact that trams always have priority (though it’s useful for all cyclists to remember those two). More generally, the course is good for drumming in some general principles: the essential vulnerability of the cyclist, the avoidance at all times of collisions, maintaining visibility by taking your rightful place as a vehicle, anticipation and awareness and – a lovely one – if you encounter loonies in cars, get out of the way, fast, and become a pedestrian again!

At lunchtime I attended an event designed to bring the Committee’s Chemistry and Culture Week to an end. For the past three days we have had a scale model of the solar-powered aircraft, Solar Impulse, on display in our entrance hall. The model is huge (the wing span is four metres). The model was loaned by Solvay, which has invested heavily in the Solar Impulse project. Today the project was explained to us by a young scientist, Nicholas Edwards. The aim is to enable a solar-powered aircraft to circumnavigate the world. It won’t be Solar Impulse, which is an experimental craft. In particular, the cockpit for the pilot is far too cramped to sustain lengthy flight and so an even bigger craft is being built. Already, though, Solar Impulse is impressive, with its 64 metre wingspan. The project team like to say that it is the size of an Airbus with the weight of a car but the power of a scooter. The prototype has passed a number of milestones, including flying all night. Edwards explained that this was done by a combination of battery-powered flight (the batteries having been charged during the day) and gradually losing altitude and gliding downwards slowly until sunrise. The next steps are trans-continental and trans-Atlantic flights.  These will require a pressurised cockpit and advanced avionics to cope with altitude (the plane will cruise at 12,000 metres) and hence an 80 metre wingspan. Ultimately, a two-seater version is planned to allow for a non-stop flight around the world. Solar Impulse is, literally, a dream coming true.

To Luxembourg, to the impressive headquarters of the European Court of Justice, for the investiture of a friend, Kieran Bradley, as a judge in the Civil Service Tribunal. Kieran is an old friend. I am delighted for him and am sure that he’ll make a brilliant addition to the team. The experience was most interesting, from the solemn appearance of the judges, in their robes, sitting in a sort of horseshoe shape, to the valedictory speeches given by the outgoing judges. One of the most interesting of these was the one delivered by the outgoing President of the Civil Service Tribunal, Paul Mahoney. In a long and rich career he has worked for both the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice. Because he was retiring altogether he took advantage of the occasion to give his opinion about how the Courts should resist the temptation of encroaching on political prerogatives: ‘the law should be an objective quality, the same for everybody, including judges’. Even, he argued, where the law is vague or ambiguous it is not for the judge to substitute for the legislator.