EU’s evangelist

Date: 13/03/1997

IN THE course of a lengthy professional career, Marcelino Oreja has been centre stage at the start of one political era and at the end of another.

As Spanish foreign minister 20 years ago, he played a key role in setting the country on a new democratic European path after years of semi-isolationism during the Franco regime.

Then in 1989, just after he stepped down as secretary-general of the Council of Europe, came the collapse of Communism. Neither Europe, nor the institution he had been in charge of for five years, would ever be the same again.

Now, as the European Commissioner charged with representing the institution at the Intergovernmental Conference, Oreja is part of the closely-knit group drafting a new constitution designed to take the Union into the 21st century and prepare the way for EU membership for those very same central and eastern European countries whose political and democratic horizons opened so dramatically eight years ago.

At the end of this month that group, which began its work in Turin a year ago, will celebrate its first birthday.

But of more importance to Oreja are the preparations for the ceremony which will mark the 40th anniversary of the EU's founding Treaty of Rome on 25 March.

As Spain's destiny has gradually become more intertwined with its neighbours, so Oreja's own personal odyssey has taken him from the national to the European stage.

Little did he realise in the late 1970s when he tabled Spain's application for membership of the then European Economic Community and the Council of Europe that he would go on to become secretary-general of the latter and then one of his country's two European Commissioners.

In between those two roles, Oreja acted as a rallying point for the Spanish centre-right in the European Parliament for five years.

This experience of three separate European institutions has given him a unique insight into the different forces and trends behind European integration.

Given that background, many observers openly wonder why he is not cutting a more high-profile figure in the ongoing EU debate. The reason may lie in the answer which those close to Oreja invariably give when asked to describe him.

“He is first and foremost a diplomat. He likes to discuss things and have a dialogue. Secondly, he is an academic. He does not like to make scenes,” explains one colleague.

This description is hardly surprising for someone who came top in the entrance examination for the Spanish diplomatic service in 1960, was head of the foreign minister's private office throughout the Sixties and has also been professor of external political studies at Madrid University's diplomatic school.

His habit of consulting widely and teasing out all aspects of a problem helps explain Oreja's penchant for establishing ad hoc high-level groups of independent experts to advise him on his various responsibilities.

But it can be frustrating for subordinates.

“He comes across as very enthusiastic for a particular idea until someone else comes along with a different approach and then he may change his mind,” complains one senior official.

Critics also maintain that Oreja's basic decency and readiness to see other points of view make it difficult him for him to take a stand.

“His big problem is that he does not like to say 'no' and this can lead him into a lot of political problems. He says 'yes' to both the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers and ends up pleasing nobody,” explains one observer.

Oreja also gives the impression of being genuinely perplexed by some of the political machinations he comes up against in the Commission and the Parliament.

After telling a small group of MEPs that he wished to reorganise the Directorate-General for information (DGX) and create a public information centre, he was surprised when those who felt their jobs were on the line began to jockey for position.

He is also understood to have been less than happy with the pressures - widely believed to have come from Commission President Jacques Santer's own cabinet - which led to DGX's director-general, former Luxembourg Foreign Minister Colette Flesch, moving to a new job.

“He certainly enjoys working in the Commission, but he feels it should have more transparency and clearer rules. There should be a clear definition of roles and functions,” confirms one official, explaining Oreja's preference for things to be unambiguously spelt out.

As he looks to the future, Oreja's responsibilities present him with two immediate challenges.

The first is the IGC, where he is in the front line in ensuring the Commission's voice is heard.

With public support for the EU in a delicate state, Oreja has a difficult tightrope to walk in projecting a communautaire view of the future. He is known to get frustrated at the flurry of bilateral Franco-German initiatives, the uneven pace of the negotiations and the way the process has been subordinated to the single currency debate.

On only two issues has he spoken out publicly

(and with some success) against governments. Last summer, he forcefully criticised member states for their peremptory refusal to extend the Commission's responsibility for international negotiations on trade in goods to include growth areas such as intellectual property and new services.

More recently, he has condemned any attempt to dilute the Commission's sole right to initiate proposals for EU legislation.

But there are many who believe that the Commission's representative should now be taking a firmer stance as the negotiations approach their end-game.

Oreja's second challenge is to carry out the reorganisation of DGX which he promised the European Parliament. The project is currently on the back burner, but if he is to emerge unscathed from the exercise, the new structure he puts in place will have to satisfy conflicting interests.

These range from those of MEPs relentlessly trying to strike up a closer relationship with the Commission's own public information effort, to DGX staff themselves, who are building their defences against any attempt to use the shake-up to parachute in one or two officials from Commissioners' cabinets.

Not surprisingly, Oreja has constructed an extensive network of contacts over the years. He and Santer go back to the 1970s through their Christian Democratic connections and Oreja is particularly close to European Parliament President José-María Gil-Robles.

He is also on friendly terms with the Spanish King Juan Carlos, after serving as one of the small group of advisers assembled by Franco in the mid-Seventies to school the future monarch on handling his new responsibilities. As one generation replaces another, Oreja's nephew is now Spanish interior minister.

Among the current group of Commissioners, Oreja is on particularly good terms with his Italian colleague Mario Monti - both have an academic background and live in the same apartment block - and with the UK's Sir Leon Brittan, with whom he shares an interest in walking.

Oreja indulges this particular passion whenever he can. He invariably manages a daily five-kilometre walk from his flat to the Commission's Breydel headquarters, and every couple of years he and a group of friends cover on foot some 400 kilometres of the Santiago de Compostela pilgrim way, which the Council of Europe launched as one of Europe's cultural routes when he was secretary-general.

The exercise combines two elements dear to Oreja's heart: walking and cultural heritage.

“If I have one image of him, it is of someone who is always moving. He also believes firmly in the importance of cultural heritage and diversity. If we now had to start constructing Europe from scratch, Oreja would probably want to begin with the cultural not the economic,” explains a close aide.