Benefits of a strong base and broader consensus

Date: 09/11/1995

By Rory Watson

IT is not an easy task projecting the Economic and Social Committee. The Brussels-based body is one of the lesser-known European Union institutions - largely because most of its members prefer it that way. But as the Union prepares for enlargement and tries to reassure a sceptical public, there will be pressure to shed some of that invisibility.

Carlos Ferrer, now 12 months into his two-year term as president, says the Economic and Social Committee (ESC) has a low profile because “we are not politicians and so we do not need to work for votes and court the media”, but acknowledges it could be higher.

“I agree we should raise our profile and our public relations should be enhanced, both on behalf of the committee and of the Union in general,” says the 64-year-old Spanish businessman.

Yet at the same time Ferrer and the vast majority of the ESC's 222 members believe that the very strength and unique role in the Union of the 37-year-old institution - which brings together representatives of employers, workers and various interest groups - is firmly embedded in its non-politicisation.

“We are the only official organ in the Union which is not a political body. All the others are political. This means that the views which we provide in our consultative work to legislators are generally acceptable to citizens at large. They know that if legislation emerges along the lines of our opinions, it will be acceptable to the public as we have already negotiated it within the ESC,” explains Ferrer.

That is possibly both the strength and weakness of the committee. Its status is largely consultative, unlike the legislative role played by the Council of Ministers, European Parliament and the European Commission. For that reason it has bent over backwards in some 3,000 opinions it has produced across the years to try and secure a form of words which can unite the often very diverse starting positions.

When it succeeds, it can offer a worthwhile input into decision-making. But failure to do so weakens its input, as do opinions whose content represents only the lowest common denominator.

In addition to its general consultative role, the ESC has begun to specialise in specific areas of EU activity, particularly the single market, where its members have direct experience of the extent to which it works in practice.

“We produced a paper studying how far a single market exists and we found 62 formal obstacles. The Commission is also assessing the impact of the single market in 40 areas and we will cooperate by supplying experts, advice and people who know the subject,” says Ferrer.

Given that its members' main base is in organisations in their own countries rather than in Brussels, the ESC considers it can play a practical role in demonstrating the reality of the Union to a wider public. As Ferrer explains: “Our single market report is a case in point. We did not just sit in an office drafting a formal text. We conducted an opinion poll around Europe asking people what their practical experience was.”

The ESC also sees itself as fulfilling a diplomatic role, developing contacts with similar bodies and encouraging the creation of tripartite bodies in countries where they do not exist.

Similar organisations exist in nine EU countries, the youngest being the Economic and Social Council set up in Greece in January.

“We are good ambassadors with third countries. It is important that the civil societies in Central and Eastern Europe have some form of contact. We have held meetings with all those that have socio-economic groups and with like-minded bodies in Mediterranean countries, Mercosur and Latin America. We can help governments flesh out their contacts,” explains Ferrer.

The latest example of this cooperation will emerge over the next month. The ESC will meet a dozen Mediterranean socio-economic associations at the EU/Mediterranean summit in Barcelona later this month. But the real business will be done two weeks later when the same organisations will reconvene in Madrid to start putting into practice the general principles agreed in the Catalan capital.

“For investment projects you need the connections and we can help provide these,” explains Ferrer. The business world is one where the ESC president feels very much at home and one in which he has operated all his adult life.

He is the chairman and founder of Ferrer International SA, an industrial pharmaceutical and chemical group, the chairman of Banco de Europa SA and a board member of several companies including Seat-Volkswagen and Electrolux Holding SA.

Before taking over his present responsibilities, Ferrer was president of UNICE, the Union of Industrial and Employers Confederation of Europe which groups 33 business federations together, for four years. Some would argue that it is a far more influential body than the ESC. Ferrer sees things differently.

“In UNICE I was in favour of the social dialogue and I believe, in a European context, this is worthwhile and possible. You can as president of UNICE have more clear-cut views on subjects, but when UNICE and the ETUC (Europe's trades union body) get a common position, then you are closer to the situation we have here in the ESC. What you lose by not having clear-cut views, you gain by having a stronger basis and wider consensus,” he says.

Ferrer rebuts suggestions that the ESC's raison d'être is being undermined by the directly-elected European Parliament or by the new Committee of the Regions. The fomer, he argues, represents individual citizens, while the ESC represents “organised citizens” like employers, workers, farm organisations and consumer bodies. “We have clarified the situation with MEPs and we do not compete at all,” he says.

The Committee of the Regions (COR) is a different story. It shares a certain number of facilities and staff with the ESC and there is growing friction between the two at official level.

Ferrer believes that next year's Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) will have to address the situation, separating the two institutions while retaining some shared resources.

He diplomatically plays down the current friction, insisting that at his level he has excellent dealings with COR President Jacques Blanc and Vice-President Pasqual Maragall, the mayor of Barcelona and fellow Catalan. He points out that unlike the COR, the Economic and Social Committee is not organised along national or regional lines.

With a year of his term of office still to run, Ferrer will still be ESC president when the IGC opens next year.

He would like the IGC to strengthen the ESC's input into pre-legislative work enabling it to air its views before green and white papers are produced. He believes the committee can play a more pivotal role in the internal market with the establishment of a single-market forum and help to push forward the social dialogue between unions and employers.

Ferrer can also envisage ESC membership being widened to reflect the growing importance of groups in society which were not considered part of the ESC's natural ambit when it was set up in 1958.

“When the European Parliament held hearings with non-governmental organisations on the IGC last month many groups involved said they wanted to cooperate with us or be represented. They need an institution where their voice can be heard. We need to see how we can be closer to them and consider whether we should change our membership requirements,” he suggests.

Ferrer himself would like to see universities, the media - “which is much more important now than it was 30 or 40 years ago” - and sport represented in the ESC. His interest in the third category is hardly surprising. The healthy-looking Ferrer is a former Spanish tennis champion and captain of its Davis Cup team, and a keen sailor, golfer and gymnast.

As he contemplates 1996, Ferrer's mind is not just on the increased status he hopes the Economic and Social Committee will gain in the IGC.

He is also looking ahead to next year's Olympic games in Atlanta. A member of the International Olympic Committee and president of the Spanish Olympic Committee, Ferrer is now busy helping to select his country's 300-strong team. He is confident several of them will come back with medals.