The prince of fonctionnaires

Date: 23/11/1995

Klaus Hänsch was impressed. When it came to parties, the 'prince of fonctionnaires' had unbeatable style.

Cars snaked up the hill bearing glittering guests. A tanned blue-eyed host offered cordial welcomes to Castelli Vinci. Looking over the Mediterranean Sea, the great and the good sipped Italy's finest wines and reflected on the future of Europe.

“Why not move the European Parliament to Messina?” one of the company asked Hänsch, who struggled to conceal surging sentiments.

“A fine idea, but I am afraid we simply could not afford it,” replied the Parliament president.

“No problem,” said the Sicilian guest, “Vinci signs the cheques.”

So goes one of the many colourful tales to emerge from Enrico Vinci's now legendary festa held in his home town last summer.

That the secretary-general of the Parliament should have provided light entertainment for those gathered to ponder the way forward surprised no one. Described as charming, generous and approachable, Vinci is the genial host par excellence.

Born in Messina, the capital of Sicily, in 1932, Vinci's life has been linked to the EU's for some 40 years. It was at the Union's inaugural meeting in 1955, again in his home town, that Vinci made his political debut as an assistant to the then Italian Foreign Minister Gaetano Martino.

It was a humble start, but an auspicious one nevertheless. As Martino and five counterparts from around Europe dreamed up a common future, Vinci launched a sparkling Euro-career, not as a politician but rather as an administrator extraordinaire.

Having established himself as one of Europe's bright young things, Vinci was soon snapped up by the Parliament's administration in Luxembourg. Although filled with trepidation about moving north, he settled in to the fledgling institution with ease and began his long, steady climb towards its top job without delay.

It took 26 years to get there, during which time Vinci tried his hand at several jobs, among them, the post of chef de Cabinet for no less than six of the assembly's presidents.

Fortune smiled on him when Simone Veil, the first president of a directly-elected Parliament, hand-picked him to head up her office. He dazzled her with his brilliance and from then on, the story goes, his ambitions were matched by political influence. “She has always cherished him and I would not underestimate the power of Mme Veil,” explains one colleague.

Dynamism and hard work ensured Vinci's meteoric rise from the bottom to the top in less than three decades.

“When everyone, from the secretaries to the haute fonctionnaires, have gone, the lights are out and the car park empty, Vinci wheels in a cartload of paper which he diligently works through. There is not a piece of Parliament paper which he has not read - that is his strength,” says the colleague.

Likewise, legend has it, Vinci always has an action plan when disaster strikes, before others have even begun thinking about how to react.

As secretary-general, the Sicilian has jealously guarded control of his institution. “He is a big centraliser. He knows everything.”

Everything, that is, except details of parliamentary building contracts signed in recent years which have since been at the centre of controversy. There, it seems, Vinci's infamous shrewdness guided him. “He spotted danger, so he left the building deals to someone else,” says an observer.

Others are less charitable, saying this was one area which the usually-fastidious Italian let slip out of his control. “Vinci simply did not keep things in check,” said one.

Be that as it may, there is no doubt about Vinci's popularity. Under him, the Parliament has made significant gains in the on-going battle between the institutions.

According to friends, he is a master of parliamentary intrigue. “He has a wonderful understanding of the way things work. He is not a systems man, but the kind who strikes deals in corridors before meetings,” said one.

A Liberal all his life, Vinci used his charm to win support from the two largest political groups, the Socialists and the Christian Democrats. It worked and he became secretary-general of the Parliament in 1986. Once in the job, he continued to use his diplomacy and charm to persuade others to take his views on board.

“A secretary-general's job is to put political decisions into practice, which is not always easy. Relations between MEPs and fonctionnaires can be difficult. He has always managed to reconcile the two,” said an admirer.

Some accuse him of strengthening MEPs' hands at the expense of the once-powerful secretariat, but that shift in power is more likely to reflect the evolution of Parliament from a tiny administration to a 626-strong body of elected representatives.

Approachability features high on most people's list of Vinci's traits and it is this absence of airs and graces which has made the Italian a favourite among employees. After all, not every boss sends telegrams to each of his or her staff on their birthdays.

“If you have a problem you can always go to him,” says one grateful employee.

But Vinci has his detractors too. They say that behind his southern charm lurks a brutal side to his character. “He is very smart and friendly but he is also sharp as a knife,” said one colleague. “If he were not, he would not have survived as secretary-general.”

Banking officials in the Parliament's rue Belliard building can testify to his short temper. They are said to have wilted under a fire of abuse when Vinci discovered the bank had run out of Italian lira.

Disagreement about the depth or otherwise of smiles generously bestowed is common, but most staff agree that their boss is a smart one.

“People may not trust him, but that is because he is too smart for them. Even those who do not like him respect his intelligence and his capabilities.”

It is unsurprising then that Vinci has been more to the Parliament than a European-style Forrest Gump. Not just carried along by the tide of events, he has rather determined the ebb and flow of that tide. “He is the European Parliament,” said one close colleague.

From his early days, Vinci has displayed an unflinching dedication to the institution and thrown much of his energy into improving its lot. He has served a succession of presidents and steered the institution through uncertain times.

It therefore came as something of a surprise to his colleagues when they read in newspapers last year that Vinci was to become one of Italy's two European Commissioners.

Antonio Martino, son of the foreign minister with whom Vinci began his political career, had become a minister in media magnate Silvio Berlusconi's coalition government and lobbied hard for his Sicilian friend. Vinci himself made several trips to Rome in the weeks before Berlusconi announced his decision.

The outcome, Italian newspapers concluded, was a foregone conclusion.

But when news of Italy's nominees for the job finally came through to Brussels, it was a devastating blow for the Parliament man. His switch from the Parliament to the Commission and from administration to politics was not to be. Instead, Emma Bonino, of the Radical Party, got the job.

“Berlusconi needed the radicals' support in the Italian Parliament, so Vinci lost out to Bonino,” explains one commentator.

Vinci was bitterly disappointed and it is now generally believed he will serve out the rest of his time until he reaches retirement age in 1997 at Parliament headquarters in rue Belliard. Who will succeed him is anybody's guess. Hänsch's current Chef de Cabinet Julian Priestly, who had been tipped to get Vinci's job if he moved to the Commission, is still the favourite. But whoever succeeds him, Vinci's performance will be a tough act to follow.