ESC’s trump card

Date: 30/05/1996

CARLOS Ferrer has a canny knack of being able to gain access to people who matter. As president of one of the EU's least prominent institutions, it is a useful trick.

In the past few months, he has energetically put the case for the Economic and Social Committee (ESC) to be given a more responsible role to nine EU prime ministers.

By the time next month's European summit in Florence takes stock of the progress made by the Intergovernmental Conference negotiators so far, he will have been to all 15 EU national capitals.

Not all Ferrer's contacts will be with government leaders. In London, he is being offered a meeting with the UK's Minister of European Affairs David Davis - a decision taken long before the country embarked on its present policy of non-cooperation with its EU partners - and both Bonn and Paris are also keeping their contacts with him at ministerial level.

But the access Ferrer has gained to the corridors of power in the Union's capitals is still an achievement no former ESC president has managed and justifies the Committee's decision two years ago to make him the first person to be elected to the post without previously serving time as an ordinary member.

“The trump card he has brought to the Committee is the way he can open doors. That is very important given that people are usually more ready to shut doors in the Committee's face,” says one official who has closely monitored the EU advisory body's painful attempts over the years to be taken more seriously.

Ferrer has tried to invigorate the ESC in other ways. He, and others, have continued to develop its role as one of the main watchdogs ready to step in when the single market fails to work. He has also encouraged its use as a think-tank by organising a series of fora on the future nature of European society (the most recent of which took place in Brussels last week).

That Ferrer can open doors is no surprise. The 65-year-old Catalan has an impressive business, sporting and cultural background.

He is one of Spain's leading entrepreneurs and built up the family business into a multinational industrial pharmaceutical and chemical group with subsidiaries stretching from Belgium to Brazil. He also sits on the boards of such major companies as IBM, Electrolux Holdings SA, Seat-Volkswagen, Zurich International and Uniber.

Equally importantly, as founder and president for seven years of the Confederation of the Spanish Business Community, Ferrer played a crucial role in organising Spanish business in the immediate post-Franco era as it freed itself from the corporate straitjacket imposed by the late dictator.

“After Franco's death, Carlos toured different European capitals to look at the various models for business and employer federations. His advantage was that he was not saddled with any historical baggage, so he could take the best from each country and build up a new model,” explains one colleague who remembers those days.

From that Spanish base, Ferrer, an enthusiastic European, became an energetic member of the pan-European employers' organisation, UNICE.

His sporting achievements are equally impressive. In the early 1950s, Ferrer was Spain's leading tennis player, winning the national championship in 1953 after losing in the two previous finals. He twice represented his country in the Davis Cup and is a keen devotee of sailing and gymnastics. These days, his main weekend sporting activity is a round of golf.

If anything, Ferrer's sporting record is more impressive off the field than on it. He is a member of the International Olympic Committee and, as president of the Spanish Olympic Committee, has been actively involved in the selection and arrangements for Spain's representatives at this summer's games in Atlanta.

Ferrer's biggest coup was helping to bring the 1992 Olympics to Barcelona. In the mid to late 1980s, he devoted much of his time to travelling around the world, lobbying the people who mattered to vote for the Catalan capital.

For five years Ferrer and the Socialist mayor of Barcelona, Pasqual Maragall, worked closely together for a common cause. Although the two have different political views and are separated by a ten-year age gap, they get on well and both move effortlessly between their Catalan, Spanish and European personae.

Each is now the president of one of the Union's two main advisory bodies after Maragall's election last March to the presidency of the Committee of the Regions, and their friendship comes in useful in helping to defuse some of the friction which has inevitably crept into relations between the two institutions.

The third major strand in Ferrer's personality is his interest in culture and the arts. He has established one foundation which awards an annual Nobel “Severo Ochoa” research prize and another, named after Spain's Queen Sofia, which encourages musical composition.

Ferrer himself is an avid collector of antique furniture and of original letters signed by prominent historical personalities. In his impressive Barcelona home - a former convent - the ESC president has put together a collection of paintings which includes old masters and more modern artists such as Miro, Picasso and Dali.

All this is accompanied by a firm belief in the EU, which helps explain Ferrer's decision - which many found surprising - to lobby for the ESC presidency when his spell as head of UNICE came to an end.

But others say the move was a natural one. “He is a loyal Spaniard, but he sees a very strong place for Catalonia in Europe and he believes human progress will be made by economic, monetary and commercial integration,” explains one colleague.

Those diverse interests and achievements have earned Ferrer several decorations and titles from the Spanish, German, French, Belgian, Swedish and Catalan national and regional governments.

They have also helped him establish contacts with various movers and shakers in Europe, whether they be monarchs, politicians or businessmen.

But the tall, athletic Ferrer, who combines the discipline of daily gymnastics with a love of fine food and the good things in life, remains remarkably unassuming. Despite degrees in economics, chemical engineering and philosophy, he does not portray himself as an intellectual.

“He is strangely modest, both in himself as a person and intellectually,” says one who knows him well. “But he is a voracious examiner of things and is very good at picking people who can do the job required.”

A perfectionist who likes everything to run like clockwork, Ferrer nevertheless manages to remain unruffled when events do not go according to plan. He also possesses a disarming charm. His advice to one press officer was simply “to make friends with the media”.

Nevertheless, as one official who has sat opposite him in negotiations confirms, he is “no pushover - he is a bit like a chocolate with a sweet exterior and a hard centre”.

Ferrer is also known for his attention to detail. While head of UNICE, he would present each of the organisation's 33 national presidents with a carefully chosen gift at Christmas and ask when their birthdays were so that he could send them handwritten cards.

This novel gesture took several of the recipients by surprise at first, but soon created a sense of camaraderie which had previously been lacking.

But Ferrer's arrival brought changes of substance, as well as of form, to the employers' organisation.

He made it more proactive, encouraging research in fundamental areas such as competitiveness and deregulation.

“He created confidence and credibility and led the organisation with determination but with the minimum of fuss,” says his successor François Perigot.

One unanswered question is what Ferrer will do next. The Olympic games are obviously on his immediate agenda, but his eight-year stint in the upper echelons of UNICE ends on 14 June and his presidency of the ESC in October.

Ferrer's business, cultural and sporting activities would be more than enough to keep most people of his age happily occupied. But they do not include the strong European element which is such an important aspect of his life.

Politics is not a route which appeals, although close associates have dangled the idea of becoming an MEP in front of him.

A businessman rather than a politician, he has told friends he is not interested in moving to the European Parliament, even if an opportunity presents itself.

But whatever route he chooses, few believe that Ferrer, with his extensive European network, will disappear from the EU scene.