Transparency on the table

Date: 14/11/1996

All change in the Commission press room in the Breydel, where the very smart pine table at which the town criers used to sit has, for no obvious reason, been replaced by something left over from the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

The new creation looks like a bridge parapet, with matt grey pillars and a glass top, and doubtless cost a packet from the EU's Buy-The-Poor-Old-Porte-Parole-A-New-Table Fund. The main improvement seems to be that fewer spokespeople can sit around it at any one time.

Asked why the change had been made, deputy-chief spokesman João Vale de Almeida rested his elbows firmly on the glass top and declared that the new table was the latest Commission initiative in the drive towards greater transparency.

Entre Nous has despatched undercover agents to find out exactly how much we all paid for it.