Media-hungry Commissioners weaken ‘single voice’

Date: 16/09/1999

By Simon Taylor

ROMANO Prodi has suffered his first major defeat at the hands of his new team, which has rebuffed his bid to end the practice of allowing individual Commissioners to have their own spokesman.

The new president's attempt to ensure that the Commission would speak with a "single voice" by reducing the number of official spokesmen and women has fallen foul of Commissioners' desires for a high media profile.

Instead of reducing the size of the Spokesman's Service to 12-15, as Prodi wanted, the new Media and Communication Service will now have up to 30 press officers and each Commissioner will have a dedicated spokesperson.

Sources close to Prodi insisted the move was designed to ensure Commissioners would be "well equipped" to play their role as the "public faces" of the institution. But it flies in the face of Prodi's insistence in June that "the current situation, under which a large group of individual Commissioner's spokesmen compete for media attention, will be brought to an end".

Officials say press officers will be organised into groups along policy lines so that they can pool resources to deal with big stories when they break.

Up to eight members of the new team will concentrate on general issues like drafting press releases and forward planning. "We need to be less reactive and more pro-active", said one source, outlining plans for a 'rapid reply unit' to respond quickly to inaccurate or negative stories.

Information officers in Commission departments will also be mobilised to act as an extra contact point for journalists.

Romano Prodi has suffered his first major defeat at the hands of his new team, which has rebuffed his bid to end the practice of allowing individual Commissioners to have their own spokesman.