Throwing wide the doors at EU’s most exclusive ‘club’

Date: 30/11/1995

IN a city full of closed-door clubs, the Political Committee is one of the most exclusive.

It is so exclusive that even ambassadors of the EU's member states jealously look in from the outside. The gatherings of their governments' top diplomats, known as the PoCo, or CoPol in the abbreviation of the French version of its name, have a mystique that derives partly from the fact that almost nobody sees them at work and partly from the style of its members.

Political directors, who are the most senior officials in national foreign ministries and most often the policy advisors closest to foreign ministers, glide into town about once a month from EU capitals to formulate Union positions on world events and its relationship with outside countries.

Nearly all the Committee's members are ex-ambassadors, many to other multi-national organisations such as the United Nations and NATO.

The classic curriculum vitae of a political director includes posts in New York, Paris or London - a tour of duty that diplomats jokingly call “the Elizabeth Arden circuit”, in reference to the designer shopping bags supplied by retailing's most fashionable chains with branches in those cities.

While their jet-setting has been somewhat curtailed by the fact that their meetings are now held in Brussels, instead of the country holding the EU presidency as was the case until earlier this year, they still travel to cities as far flung as New York and Tokyo for meetings of international fora.

Several of them were even in Dayton, Ohio, attending the recent peace talks between the Bosnian factions.

Current PoCo President Jorge Dezcallar says the Committee's main function is to ensure that EU member states speak with a common voice. “We give instructions to the ambassadors and they carry them out.”

It is PoCo which formulates ideologies and establishes the political principles for conducting a dialogue with a non-EU country, sending policy papers to their ministers outlining their recommendations.

Often, initiatives for foreign policy are conceived here, such as the EU's crisis management and conflict prevention programmes for Africa.

Generally, the political directors have philosophical discussions on a loftier level than those of ambassadors and ministers, who are often reduced to the less elegant task of negotiating.

Because so many of the Union's relationships with third countries are based on trade or development aid, EU ambassadors - jointly referred to as Coreper (Comité des Représentants Permanent) - are forced to concentrate on nuts and bolts issues.

“Coreper talks about money,” said one diplomat. “If you talk about tons of tomatoes, it's another atmosphere.”

While Coreper talks are strictly ordered, PoCo conversation is more flowing, wide-ranging and less rushed.

But the diplomats who make up the Committee have realised they must be more businesslike, or the ambassadors will take over policy-making.

Dezcallar insists PoCo does get down to business more efficiently these days. “We tend to have fewer theoretically-pure political discussions and more detailed technical debates,” he explains. “We are being less philosophical and leaving those discussions to the ministers.”

The Maastricht Treaty orders political directors to “monitor the international situation”, “contribute to the definition of policies” and “monitor the implementation of agreed policies”.

The outside world may be virtually unaware of its existence, but some three dozen working groups depend on PoCo, whose most visible output takes the form of regular political declarations on current events from Guatemala to Tibet.

The directors are in constant contact with each other, even when they are not actually meeting.

“We are on the phone all the time. It's a strong element in helping us feel we have common interests,” says Dezcallar.

Decisions are taken by consensus and no one forces a colleague to go against a national interest. But just as in ministerial meetings, the big powers generally hold sway.

“Every country is equal in the political committee, but some countries count for more in their weight in the world,” said a PoCo official.

However, countries with a national expertise, such as Belgium with Rwanda, have a turn to shine too.

“Relations are splendid,” Dezcallar says. “The meetings are pleasant in atmosphere. But that doesn't mean you are not defending your country.” The discussions are tough, sometimes “even violent, but everyone always keeps their manners”.

The Committee meets according to a published calendar - unlike the more secretive monetary committee - at least once a month, generally before meetings of foreign ministers.

PcCo meetings are presided over by the member whose country holds the EU presidency, currently Dezcallar, who sets the agenda with the help of the Council of Ministers secretariat responsible for Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).

They also move behind the scenes at the ministers' meetings, often playing a key role in crucial policy discussions.

In between meetings, the job of keeping PoCo members in touch with each other on a day-to-day basis is done by assistants called European correspondents, linked by a special CorEur (Correspondent Européen) telex system which shuttles hundreds of messages per day between the capitals.

CorEur documents are restricted to all but a small list of people, a fact which irks more than a few staff working for the Council of Ministers and Coreper. And now that the CorEur traffic is starting to include trade matters, the ambassadors are even more irate. “Nobody can control CorEur,” one said, insisting that trade discussions “belong in Brussels”.

This complaint was echoed by another official, who described CorEur as “a closed circuit”, although he conceded that PoCo was more open than in the past.

“The CFSP unit used to be a separate wing of the building with someone guarding the door,” he said. “Now it's more integrated.”

European Political Cooperation dates from The Hague summit of December 1969, when EU leaders asked top national officials to study the possibility of coordinating their foreign policies.

Etienne Davignon, then a Belgian official and later a Commissioner, drew up a report recommending a system to “harmonise points of view, concert attitudes, and, where possible, lead to common decisions”. It proposed that foreign ministers meet at least twice a year to discuss foreign policy.

The decision earlier this year to move regular PoCo meetings to Brussels makes it easier for the Committee to liaise with the working committees.

But despite mounting pressure for more merged groups - PoCo strategy groups for geographical regions are already merged with those of Coreper - the political directors do not want to move to Brussels, as their power and mystique derives from being close to their ministers.

PoCo's critics say there can never be truly common policy as long as the governments, through their political directors, keep negotiators in Brussels in the dark.

But many admit that the PoCo has helped CFSP grow. “A joint foreign policy is emerging,” insisted Dezcallar. “Three or four years ago, the member states' policies on the Middle East was far apart. Not anymore.”

Brian Crowe, the director-general of external relations for the Council, says all the committees - political directors, ambassadors and others - are vital for the development of Union policy.

“CFSP is not just a traditional diplomatic activity of foreign offices, but rather the harnessing of the whole range of means available” to the EU, says Crowe.

Defending the notion of bringing governments together, Crowe described PoCo as “an asset which would be hard to reproduce”.

Its members are holding their own and resisting talk of their extinction.

But that is what would effectively happen if next year's review of the Maastricht Treaty were to take CFSP out of the intergovernmental and into the Community sphere.

That would radically change the nature of PoCo by making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to allow its member to continue operating from national capitals instead of setting up a permanent base in Brussels. As Dezcallar sums it up: “More CFSP means less national policy.”

But no matter what its critics say, PoCo members still hold a mystique and a power that competitors are unlikely to wear down.

“PoCo derives its strength from its members' closeness to ministers and from the definition that everything can be political,” said one official.