Ireland’s centre of attention

Date: 12/12/1996

Another summit, another city.

Or rather, the same city, for this is Dublin Too, named after the remark made by one European Commission civil servant who was overheard to say: “As if there isn't enough to do without having to come to Dublin too.”

Dublin Too is, of course a follow-up to Dublin Won which was held in October, named after another EU official who commented: “The last summit I remember in Ireland coincided with some desperately important football match and Dublin won.”

For such things are summits remembered.

What does anyone recall now of, say, the Venice Euro-summit, apart from the fact that it was the occasion of the first known deployment of bullet-proof gondolas?

What happened in Athens? Copenhagen? Stuttgart? The Hague? And will either of these latest Dublin summits count as winners? Will either of them write themselves into the European history books?

I doubt whether the Irish Tourist Board is frantically up-dating its guidebooks to mark the capital as the birthplace of the launch of the proposed draft of a possible reworking of the first revision of the original founding Treaty of Another Place. (Tourism is a cut-throat business, after all, so no gratuitous publicity for rival European capitals is allowed.)

No, European summitry is a tale of public relations opportunities lost. Despite the fact that in the space of a few weeks either side of a summit, one or other European city gets more mention in the newspapers and on television and radio than its entire publicity budget for a year could afford, the exposure is seldom put to much use.

Seldom, but occasionally.

Just once in a while, the city fathers get lucky. Fate plays a hand and a particular summit turns into a landmark. The publicity bonanza goes on forever and the name never fades from the lips of Euro-nerds everywhere. On those occasions, only a blinkered town hall civic promotions department would ignore the opportunities.

I speak, of course, of the one outstanding public relations success story in the history of modern European summitry.

The name is Maastricht, the city mentioned more times in more media outlets per day across Europe than any other.

Like all great success stories, from Lenin and Lennon to Bardot and Bonino, only one word is necessary these days.

We don't even say food poisoning. When we speak of the European ideal, the striving for integration, federalism, and the fulfilment of the hopes and ambitions forged at the groaning buffet tables of free food on which the European dream was launched so long ago, we simply say Maastricht.

That one word is enough to recall the horror in 1981 when summiteers who descended on what was then a totally unknown Dutch border town were felled by a particularly vicious Euro stomach bug.

Overnight, Maastricht became a household name. “Eurocrats in Maastricht free-grub tum bug horror!” screamed the international headlines. “Vegetable salad fingered in Maastricht medical probe!”

Hospital bulletins were issued on those who left Maastricht horizontal.

The European Commission even offered compensation to hacks who had over-dosed on the diced carrots and chopped celery mix which was eventually identified as the side dish which put Maastricht on the map forever.

Why, the BBC even described the place as 'Gaastricht' in a mean reference to gastro-enteritis.

But the Dutch remained undaunted. Most countries would rather forget such an episode and let memories of it fade as fast as possible. Just ask the majority of public relations consultants what would you do about such a nightmare and they will instantly tell you what not to do.

The one thing you would not do is ever hold a summit in the same city again. For such a move would only lead to ridicule. The Netherlands would never be taken seriously again.

Look, everyone would say, you took us to Maastricht once and we barely escaped alive. Do you think we will ever go there again?

But when the time came round for a mega-summit in the Netherlands, the one that could just possibly go down in the annals of history, heavens above, they sited it in the same place!

They probably even served the free nosh from the very same salad bowl!

It was a brazen move, we all said, a textbook model of how not to give a city a good name.

“Bright Lights, Bug City!” screamed the headlines.

“City which gave us all tummy ache to host another summit!”

“Burghers back germ city again!”

And out of it came a treaty so mega, so all-pervading that we don't even call it a treaty at all. We simply say Maastricht, and we know what we mean.

Most of us still mean tummy ache, but never mind.

Because even as we gather here in Ireland for what will never go down in the annals of history as Dublin Too, there are large groups of tourists shuffling around a small border town in the Netherlands marvelling at the sixth century church of St Servatius, the 15th century former town hall, now a museum, and of course the 20th century tummy bug and treaty.

“And this is where the salad bowl was placed, at the left-hand end of the free buffet in the press room,” intone the tourist guides. “And here,” they drone on, “is where the future shape of Europe was forged...”

It was an opportunity seized and the city is still reaping the tourism rewards today, five years later.

Does Dublin have the stomach to do the same?

Go on, I dare you, upstage next year's Amsterdam gathering and give us all Guinness poisoning.

Like they say, there is no such thing as bad publicity, not even at summits.