EU: EU Commission Secretary dismisses commissioner's comments, writes Jamie Smyth in Brussels
European Commission secretary general Catherine Day has dismissed criticism from a senior vice-president in the EU executive, who accused civil servants of running Brussels and frustrating key reforms.
Ms Day, who manages the 20,000 commission officials, said the accusation made by the German commissioner Günter Verheugen was clearly wrong and admitted that civil servants were not happy when politicians felt badly served by them.
She also told The Irish Times that the EU was in much better shape now, compared to 12 months ago, when she was appointed to the top job in the Brussels' bureaucracy.
"We were stunned by the implications of the No votes in the referendums in France and the Netherlands on the EU constitution and I think it was a sobering wake-up call to people who were passionately committed to Europe," said Ms Day, who is the key official responsible for policy co- ordination within the EU's executive branch.
However, helped by a recovering economy over the past year, the commission has repaired previously frosty relationships with EU states and begun to tackle populist problems such as reducing red tape for business and cutting mobile roaming fees.
"The mood is much more positive now and there is a feeling of, let's put it [ the No votes] behind us," she said.
"I think people are starting to realise there are large parts of the constitution that we need, we've moved from a position where people thought it was rather abstract and theoretical to one where people now realise that yes the Union is bigger and more diverse and so we need new ways to take decisions."
Ms Day said it was unclear whether an institutional agreement would be a mini- treaty, as suggested by French presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy, or a maxi treaty. Whatever the solution is it would draw heavily on the content within the constitution, she said.
Yet this more positive atmosphere within the commission was interrupted this month when Mr Verheugen launched his bitter attack on commission civil servants.
In an interview with German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, he claimed high-ranking EU officials were far too powerful, had their own little fiefdoms and sometimes put forward their own opinions as the official position of the commission.
"The whole development in the last 10 years has brought the civil servants such power that in the meantime, the most important political task of the 25 commissioners is controlling this apparatus," said Mr Verheugen, who runs the industry portfolio.
In response to the criticism, Ms Day said Mr Verheugen's comments were not true and probably reflected his frustration with the length of time it was taking to implement the deregulation agenda that he is spearheading within the EU.
"The civil service understands that we are not the bosses, it is the commissioners that are the bosses and they take decisions every week . . . my experience is that we have a good lively debate internally before decisions are taken and I think that is good and productive," said Ms Day.
She warned that making commissioners sign off on all 10,000 decisions taken every year at the commission would be "unmanageable".
Mr Verheugen blamed officials for frustrating his deregulation policy to streamline legislation and remove red tape, a move that could save EU firms billions of euros. But Ms Day said the length of time required to bring about change was a reflection of the difficulties involved in simplifying the 80,000 pages of EU legislation.
There had been some resistance at first within the commission bureaucracy but the main challenge now was to consult a lot of different groups affected by the changes.
"We are trying to make a cultural change not only in the commission but also in the other EU institutions and member states . . . we touch a lot of constituencies and vested interests who have got used to working and regulating in a certain way and they don't all want to change," she said.
Ms Day refused to be drawn on a current controversy embroiling Mr Verheugen, who was photographed by a German newspaper on his summer holiday walking hand-in-hand with Petra Erler, whom he appointed head of his cabinet in April. The commission has said that Mr Verheugen has broken no rules.
Meanwhile, Ms Day said the commission would give priority to initiatives to forge a common EU energy policy and change the way decisions were taken over justice matters at EU level, despite resistance from some states.
Removing the national veto from judicial decisions would enable the EU to function effectively and stop measures being blocked at council. It was an absurdity to have a common policy on illegal migration and none on legal migration, said Ms Day.
She could understand Ireland's opposition to the measure. "We [ Ireland] have different legal traditions and I think we are seeing an expression of that . . . but people move around nowadays and there are so many cross-border issues that touch people's lives such as divorce, children's rights and financial settlements."
She also sought to allay fears that a new institutional settlement, which reduced the number of commissioners, would hurt the interests of small states like Ireland.
"I strongly believe that the commission is the organisation at EU level that takes to heart the interests of small countries . . . I would like to think that that tradition would go on even if we don't have a commissioner sitting at the table."
On Friday Ms Day will take her seat at an EU leaders' summit in Finland, where the thorny issue of an EU energy policy will be discussed in the presence of Russian president Vladimir Putin. The commission, and smaller states such as Ireland, are pushing for a common EU policy, where as big states such as Germany have signed their own deals with Russia and want to retain national competence. So can a common approach on energy prosper?
"I think states are seeing more and more they can have a much stronger dialogue by speaking with one voice with Russia," says Ms Day. "If they break ranks to do sweetheart deals with Russia, the Russians can pick them off afterwards."
One of her tasks will be to persuade states to stay united and to trust in Europe on the energy issue. Next year the stakes will be even higher when negotiations on the EU constitution begin in earnest.
Catherine Day: Brussels high-flier
Catherine Day was appointed secretary general of the European Commission last November. She first joined the commission in 1979, after periods working for the Investment Bank of Ireland and the Confederation of Irish Industry. In 1982 she was appointed to commissioner Dick Burke's cabinet and she subsequently served in the cabinets of Peter Sutherland, Leon Brittan and Chris Patten.
In 1999 she was appointed deputy head of the European Commission's directorate for external relations, in charge of relations with the Balkans, Russia, Ukraine, the Middle East and the states of the Mediterranean. She had previously worked on relations with former Yugoslavia and Turkey.
She was educated at Mount Anville, Dublin, and studied at UCD, where she received an MA in international trade in 1975. She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the NUI in 2003.