European Diary: March

European Diary: March

By Angus Roxburgh
BBC News Online, Brussels

Spring is in the air, and a new voice in the Commission.

No longer will President Prodi's thoughts be relayed to us by the slick and confident Jonathan Faull.

No longer will hacks while away the duller moments contemplating his Frank Zappa beard, wondering what shape and colour it will be tomorrow - or whether it will be there at all.

Mr Faull has gone on to bigger and better things, as director general of the Commission's justice and home affairs department, leading the fight against illegal immigrants.

Hair today gone tomorrow: No more idle thoughts about beards

Enter a large, shaven-headed Finn.

The new spokesman, Reijo Kemppinen, began his tenure with a long heart-to-heart to the assembled journalists, confessing to his weaknesses - not knowing all the articles of the European Treaty, or understanding the Commission's accounting system, for example.

He promised us "more stories".

Did that mean, we all wondered, that he was going to be indiscrete and disclose what really goes on behind closed doors? Now that would be a change.

His biggest problem, he admitted, was that he will find it hard not to break the rule that English and French have equal weight at all press briefings. "My French," he said, "is like the European Union - under construction!"

Let's parler Franglais

One innovation has been made already. Mr Kemppinen's office sends round daily emails to all Brussels correspondents informing them of the agenda of the next midday Commission briefing.

It includes advance notice of "background briefings" - helpfully translated as "briefings de background". It's easy, this French lark, really. Nothing to be afraid of, Reijo.

Food fight avoided

Giscard: Unlikely to finish Convention's work by June

Now, whatever happened to that European Food Safety Authority, based "temporarily" in Brussels, pending a decision on its permanent home?

The Finnish Prime Minister, Paavo Lipponen tried to pull a fast one, just before his country's elections this month.

He announced that the Brussels summit would approve a deal under which the authority would be based in Helsinki, while the Italian city of Parma - which also badly wants it - would be given a "strong agency the primary aim of which would be to lift the characteristically European foods and food culture to the level they deserve in the enlarged European Union."

This is waffle for another useless body which would approve "protected" food names such as Roquefort cheese and Parma ham - something already done without the benefit of a special agency.

No such luck. The EU's leaders, weighed down by Iraq squabbles, didn't even consider the matter.

And just as well, or there would have been another little war at the summit. The Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, is said to be livid at the idea. It's the food safety authority or bust.

Rome or bust

Berlusconi has ambitious plans for the EU

As if the Italians didn't have enough to worry about!

They are desperate to have a new EU treaty signed in Rome at the end of this year, when they hold the Union's presidency.

The original founding treaty was signed there in 1957, so there would be a pleasing symmetry to it - "From Rome to Rome", etc.

But before then, not only does the constitutional convention, under Valery Giscard-d'Estaing, have to finish its work, but it has to be followed by a "cooling-off period", and a whole intergovernmental conference (IGC) has to be held, before prime ministers can meet and argue for umpteen days and nights about the final text.

Can that really be done by late December? The last IGC went on for almost a year, and ended with the Nice summit, which reached agreement only after leaders were subjected to torture by sleep deprivation.

Giscard, moreover, has warned there's no way he can get the Convention's work done by June.

Oh, never mind that, say the Italians. Any old treaty will do. So long as it's called the Rome Treaty.

Italian dreams

It's only March, and Mr Berlusconi has already started outlining his hopes for the Italian six-month presidency of the EU, which begins in July.

One priority will be: "reinforcing the EU's common foreign and security policy" (ah, yes, it could do with a little reinforcing, having collapsed around the ankles of Mr Chirac and Mr Blair over Iraq).

Another priority will be enhancing relations with the countries of the Balkans - and with Russia. Indeed, Mr Berlusconi said he'd quite like Russia to become an EU member.

Blimey - an IGC, a new Treaty, snatching the food authority back from Helsinki, re-inventing the common foreign policy, and bringing Russia into the EU. Isn't that a little ambitious?

Having observed 10 presidencies in the past five years, I predict that none of this will happen.

Presidencies exist only to let vain leaders preen themselves in the public eye for a few months. Life goes on. The current Greek presidency isn't about any of the priorities it announced in advance. It's about Iraq.

The Italian one will be about... er... Iraq?