A star on the rise

Date: 01/05/1997

BERNHARD Zepter has enjoyed an unusually varied career even by the standards of Germany's foreign ministry, where diversity is positively encouraged.

Now, according to the well-developed Brussels rumour mill, he is poised to make another career move. As the European Commission prepares for changes in its uppermost echelons later this year when Secretary-General David Williamson retires, Zepter is increasingly being tipped as the institution's next deputy head.

After two years in Bonn, he would welcome a return to the multinational environment he first encountered in the late Seventies and then again in the early Nineties when he was a key foreign policy adviser to the then Commission President Jacques Delors.

While some of Delors' former team still provoke undisguised hostility from many Commission officials, the possibility of the 52-year-old Zepter returning to Brussels has provoked no such feelings of animosity or jealousy.

“He was always very approachable and was one of the most relaxed people in the cabinet. Equally importantly, he survived and his personality did not change. On one famous occasion when things were going badly and Delors' Chef de Cabinet Pascal Lamy was rampaging around, a poor huissier was heard to comment: 'Zepter is the only human being on the 12th floor',” recalled one senior official.

Without exception, colleagues pay tribute to his capacity for hard work. The long hours even prompted periodic speculation that he kept a camp bed in his office. “No matter what time I arrived in the office or when I left, he was always there before me and left after me,” remembers one former Commission colleague.

Zepter played a natural conciliatory role when relations between the Delors team and other Commissioners' advisers became tense, particularly during the dark days when Delors and the Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan were at daggers drawn over the Uruguay Round of the GATT world trade talks.

But there was never any doubt that he worked for Delors. “During one particular dispute, Sir Leon complained to Delors about Zepter, only to discover that he was carrying out Delors' orders,” said one official.

Variety in foreign ministry postings is not unusual for career diplomats. What distinguishes Zepter's background is the nature of the jobs he has handled, enabling him to obtain a comprehensive view of foreign policy.

After a short time in Africa, he was soon plunged into defence and security issues during a three-year stint with Germany's permanent representation to NATO.

From there, he moved closer to the European arena by working in the Danish and Greek foreign ministries on the EU's embryonic attempts at foreign policy coordination in what was then known as political cooperation - the precursor of today's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).

In the mid-Eighties, Zepter's career moved in an unexpected direction when he took a three-year leave of absence to work for the parliamentary group of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). He has never made any secret of his close SPD affiliations and this has not harmed his career, as it would have done in some countries.

Immediately before returning to Brussels in 1990, Zepter was deputy leader of the German delegation to GATT in Geneva. It was not one of the more satisfying periods of his professional career. The office came under the responsibility of the economic affairs ministry, not the foreign ministry, and the negotiations were overwhelmingly handled by the Commission - an arrangement he found somewhat frustrating.

After failing to join the Commission president's team in 1985, Zepter was more successful on his second attempt five years later. His arrival created an extremely efficient Delors-Zepter tandem and ensured the latter a pivotal place in EU foreign policy-making for the next five years.

“I found him quite remarkable. He is really very multifaceted. What struck me about him was the modern, professional way he tackled foreign relations. Usually, these are compartmentalised. But he took a global, very operational approach. He was well-regarded and was part of the trusted inner group,” said one official.

When Delors left Brussels, there were suggestions that Zepter might become chef de cabinet for the new German Socialist Commissioner Monica Wulf-Mathies. In the event, he returned to Bonn and was promoted to the influential post of director handling the external aspects of Union policy.

“If he had not gone to the Commission, he would not have managed to make that career leap,” explained one who has followed Zepter's progress closely.

His present remit includes not just enlargement (where Zepter is head of the foreign ministry's task force), CFSP and the deepening relations with Latin America and the Mediterranean basin, but also the single currency.

The post is one traditionally held by high-flyers and Zepter came to it some five years younger than most previous incumbents. His predecessors include Dietrich Von Kyaw (now Germany's ambassador to the EU) and Jürgen Trumpf (now secretary-general of the Council of Ministers and, like Zepter, closely linked to the SPD).

On policy issues, Zepter is a strong supporter of the Union, very much in the mould of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

He is also keenly interested in EU-US relations. He was a leading back-room architect of the upgraded transatlantic dialogue and one of the few early supporters of the Transatlantic Policy Network which brings together the political and business communities from both sides of the Atlantic.

With that disarming American penchant for informality, senior US figures such as Stuart Eizenstat, the former American ambassador to the Union and now President Bill Clinton's special envoy for Cuba, address Zepter as “Bernie”. It is an abbreviation which his European friends and colleagues, no matter how well they know the foreign policy expert, cannot quite bring themselves to use.

Despite his transatlantic interests, Zepter is by no means an uncritical fan of the US. Friends suggest he is more francophone in his attitude to the Union's closest ally. Nor, like many Germans, is he obsessed by central and eastern Europe.

Despite the image of a Stakhonovite fonctionnaire, Zepter has a life outside the office. For his 50th birthday, he hired a boat and his multinational group of friends and colleagues cruised up and down the Rhine, sipping beer to the sound of brass band music under a hot summer sun.

In common with an increasing number of senior EU officials, Zepter is a jazz fan. He is also interested in modern art, hill walking, astronomy and gardening (growing his own vegetables), although friends are at a loss as to when he finds time for such pursuits.

Like several prominent German officials including Kohl's foreign policy adviser Joachim Bitterlich, Zepter has a French wife. He is completely bilingual in German and French and has a good command of English.

Two major question marks hang over Zepter's suitability for the deputy secretary-general slot. The first is his ability to master the intricacies of the bizarre world of internal Commission politics, even though his current post includes making sure German officials are suitably represented in the institution.

“He can come across as someone who is unworldly on the workings of the Commission. When he was chairing chef de cabinet meetings on external policy he would appear slightly bemused when colleagues advanced views which reflected national stances. He expected people to follow his calm, logical, coherent approach,” said one who remembers those meetings.

The second is his ability to work effectively with Carlo Trojan, the Dutch official who has occupied the deputy secretary-general post for a decade and is now widely tipped to move up to the number one slot when Williamson retires.

“Carlo can be a difficult person to work with and he may be reluctant to give up some of his existing responsibilities. But I think the two will work well together. Bernhard's extensive knowledge of foreign policy issues and enlargement will complement Carlo's command of budgetary and financial matters and knowledge of the Commission,” predicted one source who has worked closely with both.

That combination effectively encapsulates the central challenges now facing the Commission and is shortening the odds on a Trojan/Zepter ticket.