Spreading the word about the EU

Date: 05/09/1996

FOR journalists seeking work, Brussels is something of a paradise. There is an absolute wealth of information flowing out of every nook and cranny, from big political news stories to the most obscure of technical reports.

It is little surprise, therefore, that the number of journalists accredited to the European Commission has climbed steadily in recent years to reach 750 - and is set to rise even higher as the Union expands to take in up to 12 more countries.

While journalists would claim their job is becoming ever more crucial to the interests of Europe's citizens, officials often put the blame for the Union's image problems at the door of those who they believe will do anything to twist the facts to suit their own agenda.

The unenviable job of putting a positive gloss on the work of the Commission falls to a small band of 21 individuals - the Spokesman's Service.

With so much information flying around and hundreds of journalists all desperate to impress their editors back home, such a small group of men and women naturally faces an uphill struggle in trying to keep the lid on the confidential information circulating between the Commission's various departments - and in presenting proposals in the best possible light once they are ready to go public.

Their task is made even more complex by the fact that the European Union is a unique beast.

Spokesmen in the US only have one country to worry about. The EU has 15, often pulling in quite different directions. Even Commissioners, who are supposed to represent the EU's executive, often have their own domestic reasons for doing what they do.

And if determined newshounds cannot get what they want out of the Commission, there are always 626 MEPs and 15 national representations who might be willing to leak the information they are after.

National tradition also plays a crucial role in the way information is spread. It is no great secret that if you are looking for a scoop, the open Danes or Swedes should be among the first people you call.

But one of the greatest complaints of the Brussels press corps is the difficulty journalists sometimes have in tracking down the Commission's mouthpieces.

Is it any surprise, reporters ask, that they have to pester officials within the Commission services when the spokesman they are after has done another of his or her famous disappearing acts?

Is it any wonder that they get the story slightly wrong when the spokesman is unavailable and other officials refuse to give any information?

The spokesmen themselves are the first to admit that some are less available than others. But that has much to do with the enormous workload facing those with the most complex or controversial dossiers.

Given the reluctance shown by Commission President Jacques Santer when he first took office to raise the number of spokesmen to the current level, and given the sensitivity of some of the dossiers handled by the team, journalists' calls for the provision of a second spokesman in some of the busiest areas of EU business are likely to go unheeded.

Even those with a less onerous workload face a dilemma. Should they be readily available and therefore badly briefed, or spend a lot of time with their Cabinets gathering information, limiting the amount of time they can devote to the press?

The job of solving such conundrums falls on the experienced shoulders of Commission Spokesman Klaus van der Pas.

Since taking over one of the Commission's toughest jobs when Santer's team began work in January 1995, Van Der Pas has introduced a number of initiatives to try to answer at least some of the complaints made by the Brussels press pack. He has even gone so far as to provide free coffee in the press bar on a Wednesday as an enticement to journalists to come and listen to what Commissioners have to say about the decisions taken at their weekly meetings.

Little touches such as the addition of names and telephone numbers to press releases, and the Midday express - a digest of the day's information - have all helped to make journalists' lives easier.

It is common knowledge that the Santer/Van Der Pas team did not want each Commissioner to have his or her own spokesman when the new team took office, but the potential for bruised egos made it virtually inevitable that this would happen.

“It was not worth making a fuss about and it works relatively well. Obviously, some are very occupied and others less so,” says one insider.

But all are aware of the danger of the spokesmen becoming press attachés for their own Commissioners rather than for the Commission as a whole.

Journalists often accuse individuals of worrying more about what appears in the Commissioners' domestic press than anything else.

One major change in the service, which has been almost universally welcomed, is the introduction of English alongside French as the second official language for the daily press briefing.

Yet even this important step was not agreed without a great deal of soul searching among certain francophone members of the press corps.

But for many, their initial fear that French influence would be diluted has been balanced by the relief that their language is no longer murdered on a daily basis by English-speaking journalists who last studied it 15 years ago at school.

“We really were shooting ourselves in the foot in not using two languages. We are in the business of communication and it is madness not to allow people to speak English,” acknowleges one member of the service.

But for the time being at least, there are no plans to expand the number of languages on offer any further.

The Spokesman's Service evidently faces a serious challenge as the Union moves towards taking in as many as 12 new member states. There is no way the number of genuine journalists allowed access to the Commission press room can be limited if the EU is to deliver on its pledge to pursue a policy of greater openness, but the existing facilities are already over-stretched.

The real problem is to determine who is a journalist and who is not. Aware of the pressure on space and resources, efforts have been made to weed out those who may be using the information they gather for non-journalistic purposes. But neither the Spokesman's Service nor the International Press Association has yet made a satisfactory distinction between genuine journalists and lobbyists.

However, the sensitivity of this issue within the service is evident. Journalists remember the less-than-polite manner in which a Canadian diplomat was ejected from the Breydel building's press centre during last year's fisheries dispute.

Van Der Pas and his staff believe they are “quite relaxed and non-bureaucratic” in the way they hand out information, stressing that having Santer as Commission president has made this a lot easier.

From a purely pragmatic point of view, they realise that in a large and 'leaky' bureaucracy, there is little prospect of keeping anything quiet for very long anyway.

But perhaps the greatest threat to the Commission's traditional way of doing business has come from the last round of enlargement, which saw two countries with a long tradition of openness - Sweden and Finland - join the EU's ranks.

“No one can deliver the degree of openness demanded by the Scandinavians. If you had to make the minutes of Commission meetings public, Commissioners would just put on an act,” explains a spokesman.

Defending the Commission's policy of referring all press enquiries to the spokesman, rather than formally allowing other Commission officials to speak to journalists on their areas of expertise, members of the service stress that ordinary officials are not used to dealing with journalists.

“Anyway, officials working on a single dossier do not have a fully rounded picture of what is going on politically,” says one, refuting claims that the policy is actually designed to prevent journalists from finding out what is really going on.

In practice, many officials are more than happy to chat to the press - as long as both abide by the rules of the game.

Opinion is divided on what sort of person makes the best spokesman. Some believe an intimate knowledge of the portfolio is the most important qualification, while others maintain that an appreciation of journalists' needs and an ability to communicate is more important.

“No formula is ideal; what is important is attitude,” explains Van Der Pas.