Santer adopts direct style to reach public

Date: 11/04/1996

By Rory Watson

COMMISSION President Jacques Santer is making his own personal contribution to bridging the comprehension gap between the EU and its citizens.

Proficient in four European languages, he is adopting the simple expedient of speaking directly to the proverbial man in the street.

The latest demonstration of this straightforward technique takes place in Copenhagen today (11 April) when Santer will answer questions from readers of one of Denmark's largest selling newspapers.

“These people will have unfiltered access to one of Europe's top politicians and the president will not know in advance what questions will be asked,” explained one senior Commission official.

The hour-long phone-in exercise in English and Danish follows the success of the meeting last autumn, again in Copenhagen, when Santer tried out his plain speaking and homely style for the first time on one of the Union's most sceptical audiences.

The level of public interest in the event, hosted by the Commission's office in Denmark, the Danish newspaper Det Fri Aktuelt and the trade unions, took the organisers by surprise.

“The interest was enormous. In Denmark, you normally get between 100 and 200 people for very large meetings involving a top-level politician like the prime minister. Here we had 750 people registering to participate. It was one of the biggest political gatherings in Copenhagen for years,” said one.

Santer is far more of a populist politician than his predecessor Jacques Delors, who was more at home grappling with the intellectual challenges facing the Union than with presenting a digestible message to the wider electorate.

Unlike Delors, who was appointed rather than elected to the major political posts he held before becoming president of the Commission, Santer constantly had to justify himself to voters. This partly explains his avuncular style and, say members of his entourage, his genuine enjoyment of establishing direct contact with the public.

“One of the president's greatest qualities is precisely this ability to construct proximity with the public and encourage accessibility. We are keen to develop this,” said one close advisor. Another noted: “He appreciates the very different points which ordinary citizens, unlike journalists and politicians, tend to raise.”

Santer certainly enjoys a linguistic advantage over Delors. He has used his German to address a large audience via Westdeutsche Rundfunk and last month answered questions in English for a lengthy 14 minutes from listeners to one of the BBC's flagship radio productions, the Today Programme.

“He was slightly worried about his English in advance. But he need not have been. He answered more quickly and in a more matter-of-fact way than Delors was able to. Nor did he know the specific questions in advance,” recalls one of those involved in the exercise.

Santer has also deployed his easy style with smaller groups of European citizens. In early March, he hosted a dinner in the Commission's own dining room for 20 readers of the Belgian newspaper De Standaard.

Every month for the past ten years, the newspaper has invited its readers to send in questions they would like to ask a prominent personality. This was the first time they had had the opportunity to put these directly to a Commission president.

“It was not just 20 questions and 20 answers. There was a lot of discussion and the atmosphere was really relaxed. Santer was much more at ease and less stressed than when he is with journalists. He tried to answer the questions as fully as possible and without using jargon,” said one of those present.