Jacobean tragedy in Brussels
Forget about "ever closer union." Ever since the night of the long knives at the end of September-when several senior Commission officials were rung at home to be told their services were no longer required-Brussels has had only three things on its collective mind: jobs, jobs and jobs. As the blood began seeping under office doors, an orgy of score settling, rampaging vested interests and poignant appeals to old loyalties have turned the grey 1960s corridors into the setting for a latter-day Jacobean tragedy.
In the desperate attempt to turn the Commission into a meritocracy, dozens, no, hundreds of officials have been told they are now treading water. And as any human resources trainee will tell you, this is not conducive to high-morale at work. Meanwhile, unsubstantiated claims swirl around that Mr X kept his job by being a member of Opus Dei, or that Ms Y is languishing in charge of the sheep meat regime because of a surfeit of Swedes in research.
It is hardly surprising that the Prodi/Kinnock reforms have wreaked havoc on the old certainties of Commission life. But though everyone knew this was going to be the case (indeed it was part of the point), no one is quite sure where it will lead. There is already talk of a vast programme of employment litigation being prepared by the Commission's myriad staff associations.
Prodi-sceptics-for the time being still a small minority-believe that the furore has further distracted the new Commission president. As evidence they cite his spontaneous decision to extend EU enlargement to another five states beyond the current candidates, an announcement that was quickly rescinded. Secondly, they point to his apparent willingness to voluntarily surrender powers to the Parliament. When the professore agreed to report on the findings of his enlargement task force to Parliamentary leaders immediately after they had been discussed at the weekly meeting of the Commissioners, the Parliament proposed that this become a weekly event on all topics. Officials are horrified.
Cahn do
Where were you when the reform tsunami broke? Manneken Pis was at a party for many of its beneficiaries. Also present was one of its principal architects, Kinnock's chef de cabinet, Andrew Cahn. Cahn cut his teeth at the ministry of agriculture in London. But the skill with which he set about his task suggested that he might have sharpened them at Walworth Road on the broken corpses of the Militant Tendency. Most of those present were the happy winners of what the French press now exaggeratedly claims is a British coup on the commanding heights of Europe's administration. Some were less content. Alex Schaub, the usually affable German who runs the Competition Directorate, interpreted an FT report that he would keep his job "until 2002" as a British bid for the post-one of the most powerful in the Commission.
The other Paxman
The unsung British hero of the reform was Giles Paxman, bearded diplomat brother of the Newsnight and University Challenge inquisitor, Jeremy. While the rest of Brussels was worrying about which jobs for which boys inside the formal Commission structure, Paxo Minor was at the UK Representation quietly recycling the cvs of suitable British candidates for Commissioners' cabinets, which had to raise their foreign element under orders from Prodian stormtroopers. Outcome: 17 vacancies filled by Brits, and a bigger total than any other member state bar Germany.
Not so suite for London art
The anthropologist, Maryon McDonald, tells us at great length (in a report part-funded by the Commission) what we already know: that the EU's protestant north will never understand the catholic south, and vice versa. A classic example is the long running battle over an obscure copyright question-the droit de suite. The droit is a francophone law aimed at giving painters and sculptors a right to a small percentage of the second, third and all subsequent sales of their works after they have left their hands. The idea is that starving bohemians in their Montmartre garrets, should one day reap the fruit of their genius even if they first had to sell their work for the price of a baguette. The idea caught on, but with the usual cultural differences. In Scandinavia and Germany, the droit has been rationalised into a collective artists' welfare fund pot. In Rome a similar law was enacted but, of course, never enforced.
The upshot is that Paris-in 1920 the undisputed world marketplace for contemporary art-is now the art world equivalent of a car boot sale. Anybody serious about selling expensive art goes to London, New York or Geneva. Under pressure from harmonisers in Brussels, London's droit de suite-free environment now faces the chop. Tony Blair has personally fought a valiant backroom campaign to defend the London market, but looks set to be outvoted. (Manneken Pis knows, because, to declare an interest, he has been instrumental in helping London's fight for survival.)
Better, say the French, to harmonise the rules and lose some market share to non-EU auctioneers and dealers than to live with a tilted playing field. It is a point of view and, indeed, the levy has been watered down to a fraction of the original proposal. None the less, it displays a cultural chasm between Britain and part of the continent that will be most appreciated in chic art galleries in New York and the propaganda department of Tory Central Office.
Rumour of the month
Rumour of the month is an old one that keeps returning. It asserts that Prodi is using his sojourn here as a temporary haven before resuming his grudge match with Massimo D'Alema, whom he considers the author of his own downfall from the premiership.
