Big Sibling watching EU

Date: 30/01/1997

GEORGE Orwell was only half right. Europe has a Big Sibling, but she is female and is watching through steel spectacles.

At least, that is how the European Commissioner for justice and home affairs likes to be seen, frowning from official photos with grim intensity.

Anita Gradin, Sweden's first Commissioner, gazes down upon the criminals from one of Europe's most controversial seats.

Under existing EU rules, she is perhaps more tightly constrained in her day-to-day work than any of her colleagues. Governments remain for the most part wedded to national justice systems and have, until now, refused to let the Commission play more than a back-seat role in an area which goes to the very heart of sensitivities about national sovereignty.

On the other hand, the rise in international crime, growing fraud against the Union budget and the increasingly European dimension to asylum and immigration issues make cooperation between member states a must.

Gradin, caught in the middle, may thus be forgiven if she has found the inherent contradictions of the job frustrating and difficult.

It has proved a thankless task - the Commission's poisoned chalice - all too often taken with more than a pinch of salt by the governments which established it.

Under the Maastricht Treaty, Gradin is severely limited in both her ability to propose ideas and in her leverage to push them through.

“It is something which really bothers her,” says Swedish MEP and close friend Maj-Lis Lööw. “She wants to accomplish so much, but she cannot do anything if governments do not cooperate.”

Until they ratify a host of key conventions - such as that setting up the pan-European police body Europol - member states' claims to be establishing a common front against crime are empty, Gradin constantly asserts.

And unless they give the Commission greater powers to combat the fraudsters, smugglers and organised gangs, their troubles will worsen, she insists.

These warnings have been all but ignored by the member states, and there seems little that Gradin can do about it.

Some diplomats maintain that she is not only hamstrung by her limited remit, but has also found it difficult to adapt to the ways of the EU world.

“In Council of Ministers' debates, she is completely non-existent - she has no presence, no clear policy and no impact. And she has few allies amongst senior officials,” said one.

But whether this is justified criticism, or a knee-jerk reaction, Gradin bears these tribulations with a long-term fortitude forged by many years in politics.

In the meantime, she has dedicated herself to her lifelong passion - the fight for equal opportunities between men and women.

Since her days with the Federation of Social Democratic Women in the Sixties, Gradin has introduced the issue of sexual equality into all that she does.

She is now a key activist in the Commission's work on equal opportunities and her stance has earned her great respect amongst certain civil servants.

“She is a driving force. Take her recent work against the illegal trafficking of women to Europe for the sex trade - no one had done this before,” says cabinet member and long-time supporter Ranveig Jacobsson. “She has always defended women one way or another, both in working and family life. It is extremely significant that she has been so active in this.”

But others are less enthusiastic about Gradin's chosen path. National justice ministries do not take well to what they see as her tendency to encroach on their territory, perhaps most controversially on drugs policy but also in her proposals to clamp down on the trafficking of women.

This is compounded by a sense that where Gradin could have led the way - on asylum and immigration - she has been too quiet.

Her defenders stress that Gradin's position on drugs has been very positive, going further than the Commission has gone before without exceeding her mandate.

“Her recent launch of a conference on drugs policy was a brave step,” says one official. “The member states are learning to accept the Commission's role in all of this.”

They also claim it is pragmatism that has led to her decision to keep her head down in certain areas.

“She is a highly realistic politician; she only pursues goals which are possible,” says another.

But national criticisms have not helped Gradin in her drive for greater independence and have caused discontent among some Commission officials who feel their leader's actions are not helping their cause.

Nonetheless, it is looking increasingly likely that Gradin will earn greater power to influence EU asylum and immigration policies - part of the so-called Maastricht third pillar governing cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs - at this year's Intergovernmental Conference.

This would be in no small part due to her drive for greater policy harmonisation, says Jacobsson. “When she starts to do something, she does not give up. She has been crucial in formulating the Commission's position on the third pillar.”

But while no stranger to 'big picture' politics, Gradin seems happiest when dealing with grass-roots projects, and local non-governmental activists.

“She is very result-oriented,” says a Commission official. “She likes to make field visits, to see what is happening on the ground. She is a very concrete person.”

This approach is reflected in her speeches, say supporters, which focus on specific issues and are always aimed at a particular result. “If she has not got a clear message to deliver, she prefers not to speak,” says one.

Mischievous biographers might like to see parallels in her private life. Gradin likes fishing and gathering berries in her native Swedish forests.

“She is a very good angler and she cooks wonderful fish meals,” says Lööw. “In the summer she goes into the forest to pick blueberries and cloudberries.”

Practical activities aimed at practical results - in the course of her working life she fishes for information and cooks up initiatives.

“Even when we get together in our spare time, she is always reading some book or other,” sighs Lööw.

Perhaps it is this which gives Gradin her unwavering confidence in her opinions. When she talks on a subject she feels strongly about, one senses she would like her pronouncements carved in stone. She does not take kindly to further probing.

This can make Gradin appear rather severe to those who do not know her. Perhaps her job requires it: paedophilia, sexual abuse and drug addiction are not light-hearted issues.

But she does naturally gravitate towards a hard line in her proposed solutions. There is little sympathy for soft approaches to soft drugs in Gradin's philosophy - her Swedish heritage places her firmly at the French end of the spectrum in European policy.

That has caused friction with some of her colleagues - including Italian Commissioner Emma Bonino, who publicly advocates liberal treatment for Europe's cannabis smokers.

But others welcome Gradin's up-front style and her tendency to say exactly what she thinks.

At the end of the day, however, these wrangles are unlikely to have a lasting impact on Europe's architecture. Whatever Gradin does pales into insignificance beside the diplomatic chess game being played by national leaders. And while a highly-charismatic Commissioner might have made bigger waves, they would still have crashed into a stony barrier.

Gradin will probably not be remembered as a great European stateswoman, but she will be remembered as an approachable politician who fought for what she believed in.

Lööw sums it up: “When I asked Anita what she wanted for her 60th birthday, she only wanted one thing - more money for a project helping Vietnamese women.”