Majority voting: the real story
So who was responsible for Oskar Lafontaine's bombshell about getting rid of the British veto on taxes by moving towards majority voting? Step forward the German who really runs Brussels, the permanent representative, Dietrich von Kyaw. He tried and failed to get Theo Waigel, the last German finance minister, to press the cause of majority voting. Now he has succeeded with Oskar, the man who answered the British media's prayer for another Euro-hate figure. For the next three months, von Kyaw will be the most powerful man in Europe, charged with driving forward the German presidency.
"We don't have the usual six-month presidency, because all the budget and Cap decisions have to be cleared through the European parliament, and the members disappear in April to campaign for the June elections," von Kyaw explains. "If it all works, we can start the next inter-governmental conference at the Cologne summit in June, to start on the next treaty. That's when you'll see the real rows over the expansion of majority voting."
Von Kyaw, who recalls fleeing from Prussia before the Red Army as a boy in a horse and cart, tells British chums that this majority voting plan is not aimed at them. An Americanophile (after years as number two at the German embassy in Washington), he is all for the British agenda of economic liberalisation and labour market reform. Von Kyaw's real worry is the Spaniards, who seem determined to block everything, from budget reform to enlargement-unless their net booty of ?6 billion a year from Brussels is maintained.
The Lafontaine leak
The leak of that intriguing canard about Oskar Lafontaine as the German candidate to replace Jacques Santer as president of the commission has been traced to Pierre Moscovici, France's minister for Europe. Curiously, the French have not slapped him down and the Germans haven't complained. It won't happen-not because of any British opposition to Red Oskar, but because he's not a former prime minister in a Europe where the top-level summits are where the deals finally get done.
The job market gets hot
Rather like Magritte's painting of the Belgian sky raining bureaucrats in bowler hats, Brussels is suddenly raining parachutes. This commission has but one year to go, so cabinet staffs of at least 14 lame duck commissioners are trying to parachute into good jobs for the future. Commission President Jacques Santer has already made his former chef de cabinet director-general for finance, and is trying to make his acting chef head of the legal department. Santer also has his eye on the supposedly independent new anti-fraud unit as a happy landing ground for himself. Less well-connected officials hate the thought of more than 100 high-flyers from the cabinets floating down to exclude them from the plum jobs. Outgoing German commissioner Martin Bangemann has called on the new government in Bonn to help his parachutes land in DG-IV, which runs competition policy. Thanks to the German boss there, Alexander Schaub, Germany's monstrous ?30 billion subsidies to its coal industry have been given indulgent treatment.
The Nato mouse that roared
Jean-Jacques Kasel doesn't have to buy his own drinks any more. Luxembourg's ambassador to Nato is credited with facing down the Russian threat to tear up its new relationship with the Alliance if Nato voted for the activation order to bomb Serbia. First the new French ambassador, Philippe Guelluy, told the grim-faced Russians: "We are a sovereign body here. Nato does not need authorisation from Russia, nor from the UN or anyone else." US ambassador Sandy Vershbow, who had thought this hard talking would be up to him, sat back to enjoy the sight of the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, staring at Guelluy. Then Luxembourg broke in. With total armed forces of 800 men, Ambassador Kasel declared: "You Russians are being irresponsible in every international area. You try it at the UN, you try it at the conventional force treaty talks. It is time you learned to behave." The enraged Kislyak stood up, waved his arms, gathered his papers, said he was walking out and it was Nato's fault. When nobody interrupted the silence to ask him to stay, he sat down again. The activation order was voted through.
Not all is sweetness and light at Nato. The military men complain that the Czechs, Poles and Hungarians are "very seriously unprepared" for accession. Airport fuel storage is not up to scratch, the re-equipment programme is far behind schedule and the staff don't speak enough English to cope. Still, that hasn't dented Polish pride, as they are drawn into the new strategic doctrine debate about peace-keeping. "We're not sure about this new Nato. It was the old one we always wanted to join," they tell the Brits.
