Santer bites the bullet

Date: 09/01/1997

The Commission president's recent speeches have signalled a change in style. Rory Watson reports.

JACQUES Santer has not taken easily to the modern ploy of using televised sound bites to get political messages across.

Instead of deploying memorable public rhetoric to advance the EU's cause, the European Commission president is more comfortable working behind the scenes in a relaxed, avuncular way in the search for Union-inspired solutions to the problems facing Europe.

“He prefers to work where it will have an impact, such as in the Council of Ministers, rather than trying to grab ephemeral media headlines,” explains one aide.

As evidence, officials point to the behind-the-scenes input the Commission president made at December's Dublin European summit in bridging the differences between member states over the stability pact designed to ensure budgetary discipline in the euro-zone.

“Luxembourg Premier Jean-Claude Juncker was given a lot of the credit for the deal, but it also owed much to Santer. He has known the subject and the people involved for over 20 years, has attended over 25 European summits and was able to speak fluently to the main protagonists in their own languages,” said one official.

But recently, close Santer watchers have detected a greater readiness to speak out, and use more colourful and sinewy language.

The most memorable occasion was in mid-November during a speech to European retailers and distributors.

This was an event which would normally have attracted little outside attention. The timing was, however, significant, coming just after the British government had furiously denounced a ruling by the European Court of Justice confirming that the UK had to apply the EU's Working Time Directive and its provisions on a maximum 48-hour week.

Responding tartly to the British criticism of the ECJ, Santer agreed on the need for more flexible labour markets, but pointedly denounced “a return to the Dickensian sweatshops of the 19th century”.

This sound bite, coming as it did between less graphic talk about social cohesion and consensual policy-making, positively leapt out of the speech and predictably sparked off yet another outcry in certain sectors of British public life.

Senior Commission officials, who had carefully weighed up the likely consequences of using such emotive language beforehand, believed it was imperative that Santer respond quickly and in unambiguous terms to what many saw as a crass knee-jerk UK reaction to the judges' ruling.

“There are times when you have to stand up and say things clearly or you are in danger of getting washed away,” explained one Commission source.

Interestingly, Santer's comments prompted a small increase in his weekly mailbag. At least 30 EU citizens all of them in the UK (which has a strong tradition of letter writing to newspapers and public figures) put pen to paper to air their views on the controversy.

The letter writers were almost evenly divided between those who pointed to the dangers of complete deregulation and those who abhorred any attempt by the Union to set minimum standards.

There was less public feedback a month later when Santer warned that the time was fast approaching when EU members would have to stop prevaricating and decide on the exact nature of the Union they wished to see emerge from the negotiations at the Intergovernmental Conference.

More explicitly, the pre-Christmas message the Commission president delivered to the European Parliament made plain that the option held out by some EU critics of a return to an earlier age was a pure chimera.

“No member state is capable of acting alone. Those who believe we can slip back to old ideas, such as a (simple) free trade zone, have a peculiar view of the realities of the world,” he argued.

While the UK was undoubtedly the primary target of both attacks, Santer has also trained his fire on other member states.

The most concentrated burst throughout 1996 was directed at the handful of governments which refused to approve the reallocation of a limited amount of Union funds from agriculture to the prestigious Trans-European Networks (TENs).

The tactic of high-profile criticism came close to succeeding at one point as German Chancellor Helmut Kohl almost sided with the Commission president, but in the end it failed and the extra funds did not materialise.

Santer's strategy was considered by some within the Commission to have been counter-productive since it made it harder to promote the partnerships between the public and private sectors which some believed would provide a more solid foundation for the TENs.

But Santer believes there are occasions when a more muscular tone is and will continue to be required.

“The president believes we are getting to the stage when hard decisions have to be prepared. It is not his personal style to be aggressive and he has not traditionally resorted to sound bites, but he now sees it as occasionally necessary,” explained one senior official.

However, not all the attempts at painting graphic images are successful and Santer's use of the works of playwright Samuel Becket in his closing remarks to a meeting of the European Finance Convention in November left many observers bemused.

“We are no longer 'waiting for Godot'! We are waiting for the euro. Unlike Godot, the euro will come, and will be with us in 1999. The 'end game' has started. We have a little more than two years to go Everybody should prepare for the departure of the euro-train,” he told his audience.

Santer's increasing readiness to voice the unpalatable or to rebut criticism he believes is ill-founded is coinciding with a rethink in some Commission quarters of Santer's earlier maxim of 'do less, but better'.

“Now we have done the first part, you want to know how we will achieve the second,” retorted one senior official, not entirely in jest, when asked whether the maxim still applied to the institution's overall strategy.

But privately many officials believe that the Commission, while not meddling in areas outside its competence, should be more visible a view supported by the firmer tone of some of Santer's recent comments. Yet they are equally adamant that this does not amount to any U-turn or fundamental change in strategy.

“The Commission president has not changed, but he has developed his armoury. Frankly, he is enjoying the position he is in now and, from a general point of view, he is well placed,” explained one source.

That confidence can also be seen in his approach to foreign policy an area where Santer did not have the same depth of knowledge before joining the Commission as he had in monetary matters.

Somewhat reluctant in the early days of his presidency to voice strong opinions, Santer is now much less hesitant about speaking out, particularly on controversial issues such as the US Helms-Burton anti-Cuba legislation.

As he looks ahead to the second anniversary of his arrival at the Commission later this month, Santer can point to the main themes in addition to the ever-present challenge of unemployment which will dominate the next three years of his spell at the helm of the institution.

The list brought together under the umbrella heading of Agenda 2000 is headed by monetary union, followed in close succession by the IGC and ratification of its outcome, preparation of the Union's next enlargement, agreement on a new multiannual EU financial package for the years beyond 1999, and the extension and consolidation of the single market.

The ground work is already well advanced in some areas and is gathering pace in others.

“The second half of 1997 and the first half of 1998 will be a crucial time for all these issues. But if you stand back and look at Santer's five-year spell as Commission president from a historical perspective, he is really quite well placed,” suggested one senior EU diplomat.

There are now many within the Commission who believe that it will be essential for Santer to build on these early signs of a tougher approach if he is to succeed.