Good in theory

My experiences of Europe

Europe, I used to think, was essentially a clockwork engineering operation (The clockwork Brusssels sprout perhaps?) where public opinion in the form of the tabloids is nothing so much as a wrecking operation. I remember when I first came to Brussels how amazed I was at the intricate structure of decision making: it was an immense flow chart diagram and everything seemed so immensely logical and rightful in its place. The European Commission proposed; European parliament amended, with the insight from impact assessments; law proposals went on to the council of ministers, which represented the nation states. There was input from the committee of the regions and the European social and economic committee. Numerous lobbyists and members of civil society also had their input arrows; there was COREPER, the nation states’ embassies to the EU, and the flow chart was slightly amended for second readings and what was known as conciliation, when the institutions failed to agree. It’s not that underneath this political structure there weren’t people; the people’s needs came in through impact assessments, ruled by the gods of utility. But there was no politics. It seemed a liberation. There were differences between different groups wanted, but the system was designed to create the best of all possible worlds for homo europeanus.
And coming back to London and picking up the redtops was a shock to my Brussels-refined sensibilities: the mastheads were dipped in blood and opening the pages was like prising apart the jaws of a Rottweiler. The contrast between the intellectual sophistication and mild personalities of the commission officials I knew and the thuggish rage of their critics was striking There was a strong element of bullying I felt: even the eurosceptic Telegraph’s correspondent was once minded to comment that the commission was the fat boy in class who never hit back

But never mind, Europe would continue to work for the ingrates: and the more time I spent commuting to Brussels, the more the acronyms and special jargon started to make sense, and were not there as an obstacle to mark exclusivity –unless that rule applies to all specialist activity, including say engineering or medicine. But was necessary because of the fine honed and abstruse nature of decision-making.
And commission officials told me: who could say that Europe didn’t deliver? It broke down barriers to trade and movement of peoples, brought democracy to its eastern marches, raised the bar of environmental and safety standards and thus stimulated technical innovation. Whereas nation states were caught up in their petty concerns, so that roads through border areas were of poor quality, the visionaries of DG Transport funded schemes that would link Athens and Stockholm, Warsaw and Lisbon, by motorways, and the whole continent by a high speed railway network. It funded a bridge between Sicily and the mainland, between Sweden and Denmark. It was responsible for the ITER fusion reactor, which aims to provide an inexhaustible supply of clean energy by 2050, and now the Galileo global positioning satellites. There were large sums of money to get European universities to collaborate so that there would be no Chinese walls, no duplication of scientific effort, which countries can ill afford when competing with the US: The EU also funded student exchange programmes and drove through the mutual recognition of professional qualifications, enabling architects, doctors and engineers to settle in Berlin or Biarritz according to their fancy.

For the consumer and expat there were low international call charges, better food labelling, cheap European flights, and better bureaucracy in the European sunbelt: there was right to travel for free healthcare abroad for ageing mother and cheap flights down to Malaga for the teenage grandchildren. .
When the people said: “What has Europe ever done for us”, the reply could be: “Watch the life of Brian”.

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Now, these days, my enthusiasm has moderated considerably.
There have been times when I have despaired of the British, with their insular righteousness, but the longer I spend in Brussels the more I have come to see that cynicism is either merited or is a useful intellectual stance towards the institutions..
Behind the flowcharts, the position and policy papers, the smooth seminars that create a consensus, the different inputs from different institutions all leading inexorably to the right decision, I have come to realise there are individuals –bureaucrats, individuals fighting turf wars, advancing their careers and that of their friends.
Instead of a multilateral system based on different insti tutions, the council of ministers –national governments –reigns powerfully.
I have seen huge inefficiencies: the court of auditors failing to sign off the accounts for the13th year running, I have heard the voices from scientists at conferences who have told me that European science and technology spending – bigger than any national science budget in Europe, and its second largest item after agriculture –is all a waste of money. .Instead of winelakes, think scientific paper mountains.

While Europe certainly has many achievements, the picture even here is tempered somewhat: n fact, several of the trans European networks are as yet unrealised, and many of these schemes are critcised for involving nation states’ money that comes back to them minus the wastage it’s endured in its progress through the bureaucracy.
I still like Europe as a continent – not necessarily when used as a shorthand for the metastasising institutional framework based in Brussels, where a new office block or skyscraper to house more technocrats seems to rise very few months. I sometimes squint and look down rue de la Loi, wondering what the parade route through Albert Speer’s planned Germania – Berlin - would have looked like.


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Still, here are moments when I still hearken back to my simple idealism of those early days several years ago, when I arrived and was enchanted by Brussels. the snow is patterning your hair but it has melted on the cobbles of the spire-infested Grand Place, giving a sheen in the gaslight. You have just emerged from a smoky estaminet with the gravelly words of Leonard Cohen ringing in your ears. Soon you will be hitting the pillows with your 27-year-old commission girlfriend. And tomorrow you will go to the European parliament with its gardens and the big atrium,, and along with the young parliamentary assistants, the girls and boys in suits clutching files under their arms, together, plan a better world, one that looks splendid on paper