Putting consumers first

Date: 19/10/1995

By Fiona McHugh

EMMA BONINO is no stranger to controversy. Plunged into a highly-volatile fish war with Canada just weeks after becoming Italy's junior European Commissioner, Bonino quickly showed her colleagues she was a woman to be reckoned with.

Arrested several times during protests against Italy's nuclear programme and campaigns to legalise abortion, she has always been known for standing tall and talking tough.

Little surprise then that the diminutive Fisheries Commissioner fought long and hard to defend Europe's right to a fair share of Greenland halibut, securing an improved deal for the EU and winning Spanish (if not Canadian) fishermen's hearts.

A recent visit to Cuba brought fresh controversy when Bonino, wearing her humanitarian aid hat, told veteran Communist leader Fidel Castro that Cuba needed to speed up its economic reforms.

That meeting allegedly upset External Relations Commissioner Manuel Marín, who felt she was swimming into his political waters.

Given this flurry of activity, it is hard to imagine how the 47-year-old Commissioner has found time in the past ten months to tend to her third portfolio - consumer affairs.

“I have been doing a lot of thinking,” she explains. “You know my work in fisheries and humanitarian aid is dictated by outside events to which I have to react - like famines or fish wars. But in consumer affairs, I have been trying to stimulate deep thought and discussion.”

The fruit of all this thought, a three-year action plan outlining a significant change in policy direction, is due to be presented to the full Commission before the end of the month.

“A lot of work has been done to ensure that goods throughout Europe meet the same standards - now we simply have to make sure that those standards are adhered to. We now want to shift the focus away from goods and on to services, in particular financial services,” an aide explained.

“There might well be a clash with the financial services,” warned Bonino through a cloud of cigarette smoke. “We are conducting a study into financial services and then we will see what needs to be done. But, for sure, this is one of the fields in which we need to put some order.”

Other companies likely to feel the heat of intensified scrutiny are the newly-privatised utilities. “I am all for privatisation, but we have to make sure that consumers don't get a bad deal. We have to ensure that service is provided even when it is not economically viable.”

Information will form a central plank of consumer policy in coming years. “Consumers have all these rights, but they don't know about them. It has not clicked or sparked or whatever.

“So far we have relied on consumer organisations to spread the word, but now I think we will have to reach out more ourselves,” explains the Commissioner.

But Bonino has not restricted herself to deep thought alone. True to form she has made some waves, albeit small ones, in consumer circles too.

Within months of taking over she sacked the Consumers Consultative Council - a Commission-appointed advisory group of consumer organisations. The Council, according to a colleague, did not live up to expectations.

“These guys were supposed to be helping us, but they took months to respond to questions. It was ridiculous. She sent them home and has now set up a more dynamic group,” he said. It was a move that won her few consumer group friends.

But an unflagging desire to lift the profile of consumer affairs, which paid off in the service's promotion to a directorate-general, has earned her respect from staff. Although that change was largely cosmetic, bringing no extra cash and only one extra staff member - a director-general - it has unquestionably given employees a much-needed morale boost.

Consumer affairs has long been dubbed the Cinderella of the EU, a name tag resented by the service and one which Bonino is determined to shake off.

“It is important to have, in our bureaucratic language, not only a vertical approach but a horizontal approach. In other words, I want to be involved in all of the portfolios. We are coming out of isolation.”

Whether or not that will be welcomed by her colleagues in the Commission is another matter - Commissioners are notoriously jealous when it comes to their portfolios.

“For the moment, our suggestions have been mostly welcome. But I'm sure we will have a clash sooner or later,” says Bonino.

Selling Europe's yet-to-be-named single currency to uninterested citizens is an unenviable task which also falls to Bonino - but one which she clearly relishes. The mention of EMU normally prompts politicians into delivering speeches about convergence criteria or rates of conversion. But not Bonino. Bringing lofty, remote discussions down to earth is her forte.

“I want to convince toy makers to produce an ecu version of the popular game Monopoly - that would help convince children,” she said, showing that her reputation as an original thinker is well deserved.

“For adults, I was thinking we could give the ecu a trial run in a supermarket for a week or maybe even a day, by showing prices in both lira and ecu. Then we could see how people react. We could even do a comparative test monitoring the reaction in say Rome and in the small village where I come from.”

Earlier this year Bonino told journalists she would not rest until she had convinced her septuagenarian mother of the virtues of a single European currency.

“Currency is a deep-seated thing. Even though I have lived abroad for a long time, I still convert to lira if I want to check if something is expensive or not. Think then of a fisherman from Devon or Alicante - poor guy - he doesn't need an ecu. He probably doesn't even know what the ecu is.

“Because the positive aspects of this currency are mostly macro-economic, normal people find it hard to relate to the project. We have to teach them to love this currency.”

And if anyone can do it, Bonino can. She is neither short on energy nor on ideas.

What she is short on is cash. Consumer affairs accounts for just 0.00027&percent; of the total EU budget, according to the Cabinet. Bonino hopes that will change at the 1996 IGC, but in the mean time, she says she will make do. “I am used to managing on small amounts of money.”