Third time lucky?

Date: 10/04/1997

Personnel Commissioner Erkki Liikanen seems to have a personnel problem - he is about to appoint his third spokesman in as many years.

Some other European Commissioners - Hans van den Broek, Emma Bonino and Martin Bangemann - have changed spokesmen once, but until now only accident-prone Ritt Bjerregaard has done it twice.

Liikanen's predicament is understandable, however: his spokesman for the past year, Timo Pesonen, is going back to Helsinki at the end of this month to become external relations adviser to the country's prime minister.

Pesonen has the right credentials for his new job, having followed the intricacies of the EU's common foreign and security policy and the Western European Union for most of the six years he has been in Belgium.

Timo is being replaced in the personnel and budget hot seat by former journalist Eila Nevalainen, who is currently working for the Socialist Group in the European Parliament.

But before departing to new pastures, Timo has had to take on extra duties, stepping into the breach last weekend to act as the Commission's duty spokesman at the informal gathering of finance ministers in Noordwijk because the wife of De Silguy's spokesman Patrick Child is expecting a ... child.