New broom sweeps in for British industry

Date: 22/05/1997

By Tim Jones

THE arrival of a Labour government in London should signal a new dawn for UK business in Brussels, or so hopes the incoming president of the British Chamber of Commerce.

“It had better make a difference,” says Jeremy Jennings, a consultant at Arthur Andersen who took over at the helm of the 300-strong UK industrial lobby group in December.

“The government will be listened to more in Europe,” he predicts.

“Other member states wondered why we were the way we were and it has been very frustrating as a Brit over here defending our position and then, back in Britain, defending Brussels from misrepresentations.”

The perceived indifference of the past administration had a direct impact on the chamber, he says. Conservative ministers passing through Brussels never accepted invitations to speak at chamber meetings, while the new Industry Minister Margaret Beckett did pay a visit when she was in opposition.

Yet Jennings claims his organisation does have an influence on policy-making within the EU institutions and should not be ignored.

It monitors the development of legislation, provides information to members and - through its policy oversight committees - puts across the views of industry. Yet, ironically, it is still far from having the same clout as the American Chamber of Commerce and its EU committee.

Why does 'Amcham' have so much more of a visible presence in Brussels?

“Money,” replies Jennings. “They simply have more financial resources with a secretariat of 20 compared with our three. On top of that, they churn out position papers as if they were going out of fashion.”

But there is another reason for the influential position of the US industries' lobby here.

“Several years ago, American companies were very concerned about the possible creation of a 'Fortress Europe' so they felt it was worth investing to influence the institutions against going down that route,” says Jennings. “For the Brits, we have been inside since the Seventies and there has not been the same need to get our voice heard from the outside.”

Until now, the British chamber and its EU committee have relied on regular breakfast meetings with directors-general, and occasional set-piece events at which Commissioners are asked to speak, to keep in touch with the institutions. The most recent of these were meetings with Social Affairs Commissioner Pádraig Flynn and his counterpart for transport policy, Neil Kinnock.

Although these are of great value to the chamber, the new president wants to put the lobby on a more business-like footing. “We have been through bad financial times,” he explains. “In fact, the chamber has made no money for the past ten years and has instead lived off reserves built up during the Seventies and early Eighties.”

Over the past few years, the chamber has elected presidents annually while the day-to-day running was left to a series of directors and management consultants, but this did not work out.

Jennings - appointed for a two-year term and given hands-on management responsibility for running the lobby - is intended to be a new broom, aiming to increase membership numbers, bring in more big corporate members and influence policy in a more systematic way.

To begin with, he wants to co-opt more outsiders on to the council of the chamber so that there is more day-to-day interaction between industry and policy-makers. He aims to bring in a Commission director-general, a representative of the Confederation of British Industry, Socialist MEP Alan Donnelly and two officials from the British embassy for Belgium and the country's permanent representation to the Union.

“What I would like to see is the chamber doing more proactive work - getting together so that our voice is louder,” he says. “The more voices you have saying the same thing, the better it is.”

An abiding problem for industrial groups such as the chamber is how to represent often wildly diverging opinions between types of firms. For example, a small supplier company or a tiny retailing group has very little in common with ICI or British Airways. Indeed, small upstart firms can often be the sworn enemies of established companies as they seek to break into the latters' cosy markets.

“It can be a difficult balancing act, I admit that,” responds Jennings. “It is hard to present a united front on anything when it comes to the EU. But there is such a thing as a national interest which binds together many of these British companies operating in Belgium.”