Deputy promoted to Commission top post

Date: 22/05/1997

By Rory Watson

CARLO Trojan, a veteran fixer after almost three decades with the European Commission, will become the institution's new secretary-general on 1 August.

The decision to elevate Trojan from the post of deputy secretary-general to succeed his outgoing British superior David Williamson was taken with almost unprecedented haste by the Commission.

Confirmation of the appointment came yesterday (21 May), just two weeks after Williamson's announcement that he would leave his post on the eve of the summer recess.

Although key EU governments had been discreetly sounded out beforehand about Trojan's possible promotion, the Commission's swift decision took many observers by surprise.

It was only last week that the vacancy was officially announced and aspiring candidates within the Commission were invited to put their names forward.

Apart from Trojan, the only other official applicant was Eneko Landaburu, the respected Spanish director-general for regional policy for the past 11 years.

This speed reflected the determination of President Jacques Santer and his colleagues to entrust the post to a Commission insider and to prevent it becoming part of a wider European political equation involving the search for the head of the future European Central Bank and the Union's new foreign policy supremo.

The 55-year-old Trojan had long been considered the front runner for the influential position as the most senior of the Commission's 16,000 officials. An expert in agricultural policy, he first joined the institution in 1973 as a personal adviser to then Dutch Farm Commissioner Petrus Lardinois.

He followed this with a four-year stint in his native Netherlands' civil service before returning to the Commission in 1981 as chef de cabinet to the long-serving Dutch Commissioner Frans Andriessen.

Six years later he took on the wider brief of deputy secretary-general.

It was in this role that Trojan carved out his reputation as a successful fixer who could bulldoze through bureaucratic red tape and steer sensitive political initiatives to fruition.

He played a leading role in the creation of the 3-billion-ecu Union package to ease the path to German reunification and performed a similar task a few years later in piecing together a 300-million-ecu programme to bridge the economic and social divides in Northern Ireland.

Trojan will be only the third secretary-general in the Commission's 40-year history. Before Williamson took over the post in 1987, it had been held since 1958 by the Frenchman Emile Noël, who died last year.

The Commission will now start the search for Trojan's successor as deputy secretary-general, with senior German foreign policy expert Bernhard Zepter a leading candidate. British fonctionnaire Philip Lowe is also a strong contender if the Commission reverts to its practice of the early Seventies and appoints two deputies.