Power struggle threatens information centre

Date: 26/10/1995

By Fiona McHugh

AN initiative aimed at helping Central and Eastern European countries take on board EU laws has suffered a set-back following an internal dispute between two of the European Commission's departments.

The dispute between two Directorate-Generals vying for control of the so-called technical assistance information exchange office means that the centre is unlikely to open its doors before June 1996, if then.

The office, provided for in last year's White Paper on integrating Central and Eastern European countries into the single market, was conceived to help associated countries come to terms with the plethora of new laws they must adopt before joining the 15-member bloc.

While the official line is that the centre will be up and running by January, sources within the Commission insist that date is unrealistic.

“The first exchange may take place some time next summer, but I would say it will not be fully operational before the end of 1996,” said one Commission official.

“It is not only a question of transposing these laws, but of ensuring they actually mean something. To do that we need an inventory of the state of play both within the Union and in the associated countries and that will take time.”

But the delay is not simply a result of an over-ambitious timetable. Sources say the centre has fallen prey to an internal power struggle which has slowed down its launch by at least six months.

“Because it is a highly political issue, the information has been scattered across DGs and that has slowed down the whole process considerably,” says the official.

Both DGIA, the Directorate-General for external relations, and DGXV, which is responsible for the single market, want to run the centre.

The former argues its Phare programme has run the European Union's technical assistance programme for Central and Eastern Europe since the collapse of communism, and has hands-on experience which it believes qualifies it for the task.

But DGXV claims that, as the department which got the single market off the ground, it should oversee the harmonisation of associated countries' laws.

The centre has been granted funding of 18.5 million ecu until December 1997.