The ERT has shown great interest in the process and outcomes of the Intergovernmental Conference. ERT members have arranged a series of high-level meetings with Commissioners and national governments in which they have outlined their positions on various issues relating to the IGC, making their preferred outcomes for the Summit quite clear. Main ERT priorities are strengthening the EU’s ability to act, further deregulation, and expanding the EU to include Central and Eastern European member countries.
According to ERT Secretary-General Keith Richardson, “Our contribution to the IGC is to meet politicians and government officials, and simply to encourage them to move forward”.1 In terms of influencing the IGC, perhaps the most strategic meeting to be had is with the head of the government holding the EU Presidency, since January of 1997 the Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok. The ERT has been efficient and methodical in its lobbying of key IGC figures: “We try to see every government that deals with the European Presidency”, says Richardson. “For example, we have met and talked to Wim Kok early on this year because he’s got the Presidency”.2 But other governments were also approached: “We’ve talked to the Spaniards, the Italians, the Irish, the Dutch, and we’ve talked to the Germans and the French because they are lead players”.3
With this sort of unhampered access, the ERT has an advantage over UNICE (the European employers’ confederation), which considers itself “the official voice of European business and industry vis-a-vis the European Union institutions”.4 When asked to comment on the special treatment granted to ERT members in comparison with UNICE, Richardson explains: “What we’ve got to offer is that if Wim Kok meets the ERT, he meets with 5 or 6 company chairman. And they talk with a certain personal authority”.5 The interests of UNICE, by comparison, are represented by officials of national employers organisations.
As the practice has been in other specific areas it hopes to influence, the ERT set up a special working group on the IGC well before the negotiations started. In its first phase, the IGC working group was chaired by Helmut Maucher, CEO of Nestlé. Maucher was able to meet with Carlos Westendorp, who was chairing the official Reflexion Group which had the task of writing the first draft of a new EU Treaty. The chairmanship of the ERT’s IGC working group was later taken over by the duo Jerôme Monod, Chairman of Lyonnaise des Eaux, and Gerhard Cromme of Krupp. The working group produces papers, which are then used in high-level meetings to present ERT positions. For example, the ERT IGC working group provided a paper for the meeting of an ERT delegation with German Chancellor Kohl in May of 1995.
According to Richardson:
“All kinds of meetings have taken place, quite a lot of them at a very high level [...] Part of the ERT success is that all of these people [ERT members] are engaged in discussions independently all the time: they are all meeting their own governments, newspaper editors, industrial federations. And I meet a lot of people in Brussels, and I convey these messages in my way. So a lot of communication has taken place on the subject of the IGC”.6
The messages that the IGC working group has been so actively conveying are clearly expressed in three position papers from 1995 and 1996, as well as a speaking note for a meeting with Helmut Kohl. According to Richardson, increasing European competitiveness is a prime reason for the ERT’s interest in IGC proceedings. “The way in which Europe is managed is an important issue for business. We have to compete all over the world, and are we tremendously concerned with the competitiveness of Europe. In that sense, the IGC is not just a private game for politicians”.7 This drive for competitiveness is of overriding concern for the ERT, as is the extent to which European competitiveness is contingent upon the EU decision-making structure. The advantages enjoyed by the EU’s main competitors Japan and the United States – single governments, markets and currencies – are a source of envy in the relatively fragmented Europe. “The United States could do nothing if every decision had to be ratified by 52 states”,8 argues Richardson.
Thus, the EU’s inability to act is viewed by the ERT as an impediment to the intensified competitiveness of Europe as a whole. “We feel very strongly that Europe can not move at the pace of the slowest”, stresses Richardson.9 The ERT supports two possible solutions to this obstacle: a change in the definition of majority voting in a way that favours more powerful countries10as well as the more frequent use of this kind of voting, or the adoption of the flexibility clause as proposed by France and Germany, which would permit the core governments to steamroll ahead without unprepared or unwilling minority countries. However, even flexibility has its limits: as Richardson says, “whatever is done should not damage the Single Market”.11
The ERT is also not entirely satisfied with the existing balance of powers between the various EU decision-making arms. In direct contradiction to widespread public opinion on democracy and transparency issues within the EU, the ERT believes “that the Commission would work better if the President had more authority”.12 This would no doubt make the EU more efficient, but certainly not more democratic.
The ERT is quite keen about the enlargement of the EU to include Central and Eastern European countries, as is evidenced in their IGC position papers. As the ERT Secretary-General explains, broadening of the EU “is fundamental indeed. It will bring great economic benefits. These countries will bring new people, a lot of skills, technology, education, know-how. They will bring material resources including land and energy, and they will bring markets for our products”.13 Indeed, the prospect of increasing the EU home market from 360 to 500 million people is wildly exciting from an industry perspective – “as if we had discovered a new Southeast Asia on our doorstep”.14
The ERT has informed the Commission of its hopes that final decisions regarding expansion are taken in Amsterdam so that formal negotiations can begin as quickly as possible. In return, the Commission has stated that it is prepared to open negotiations with the new candidates over the summer, if all goes smoothly in Amsterdam. According to Richardson, “once these countries are launched on the path of negotiations, this will lift up the confidence of western industrialists – who of course can invest more money there”.15 Potential political problems which might arise with further unification are of no interest to the ERT: “Our job is to say that the potentials gains are much more important [...] It’s not for us to make speeches about the political unity of Europe”.16
The ERT has long made the link between the elements of competitiveness (deregulation, liberalization and growth) and job creation, as witnessed in their 1986 report Making Europe Work, which calls for greater flexibility in hiring and firing laws, working hours, regulations and wages as well as reduced social security. The Commission later adopted these ERT demands in its 1993 White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment, and reiterated them in an IGC paper from February 1996: “This strategy is still relevant today: growth, competitiveness, and employment go hand in hand. Only a competitive economy can create lasting jobs”.
In its IGC position papers, the ERT uses job creation as the carrot in its pleas for competitiveness:
“The IGC should strengthen the competitiveness of Europe by making it possible to build an integrated free market economic system, with a maximum of flexibility, a minimum of regulation, and the removal of all remaining barriers to trade. Competitiveness is an essential pre-condition for job creation and for the financing of social security systems”.17
The proposed instruments for job creation are “competition, liberalization and privatization through competition between rules and locations for investment”,18 particularly in the three key areas of energy, transport and telecommunications.
Richardson is not bothered by the idea that the new treaty will most likely have a chapter on employment, which may include elements of job creation that run counter to the ERT’s competitiveness dreams. According to the ERT, jobs are best created through the undisturbed functioning of the single market. In fact, the employment chapter will probably do little more than allay public fears about Europe’s rising joblessness, which explains Richardson’s relaxed comment that it will be “a large waste of time [...] If politicians feel it is important to get the chapter referring to the desirability of full employment, and if they think that will help with public opinion we don’t really object [...] It won’t help jobs, but it won’t do much damage – provided of course that it remains in general terms, related to aspirations”.19 And according to Richardson, the Council is also dismissive about the intentions of the employment chapter. “Enough people in government have now understood that the chapter is relatively meaningless. Several Prime Ministers have commented that writing a chapter in the treaty will not create jobs”.20
To the ERT, environmental regulations are simply another barrier to unfettered competitiveness. So what worries the ERT more than the anticipated employment chapter is the environmental movement’s request that environmental issues be integrated into every chapter of the treaty. “This is really much more damaging”, says Richardson. “If you write environment into every chapter of the treaty, you might as well write everything else into every chapter of the treaty [...] I think they are asking for too much”.21
The ERT also sees the IGC as an instrument for increasing its influence outside of Europe. The general wish to hurry the EU along and “increase its ability to act” has specifically been directed towards negotiations on foreign affairs issues. The ERT appreciated the results of the Uruguay Round of the GATT, where the EU negotiated on behalf of all 15 members states, and wants this bloc bargaining to happen in all fields. “The IGC should equip the EU with a strong and unified voice on all matters of external economic relations”,22 reads the ERT position paper for the Irish Presidency. “The all-important Common Commercial Policy should be extended to ensure unified negotiating positions on all external commercial issues, including trade in services, investment and the protection of intellectual property”.23 These sentiments were echoed in the Irish draft paper prepared for the Dublin summit in December 1996, which proposes a new draft for Article 113 on common commercial policy. This article in the Maastricht treaty allows the EU to negotiate on behalf of the 15 EU countries in matters concerning international trade of goods. Extending the scope of this chapter to trade in services, intellectual property and public procurement would mean a big step down the path towards global free trade as promoted by the ERT.
In general, ERT demands for the new treaty revision seem relatively modest, especially in comparison with its agenda-setting role in earlier treaties such as the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty. This can be regarded as an indication of the extent to which earlier Roundtable desires – for the hastening of the Single Market, for increased infrastructure and for the creation of a monetary union to name a few – have already been institutionalized. ERT position papers for the IGC stress the importance of implementing existing policies, such as the European Monetary Union, and urge the IGC to move along in areas such as expansion towards Central and Eastern Europe. The ERT continues to actively counter changes in the Treaty which in its eyes could damage competitiveness, such as a stronger social dimension or the integration of environmental policies in different sections of the treaty. So far, it seems, successfully.
1. Personal interview with Keith Richardson, Brussels, 21 February 1997. |back to text|
2. Ibid. |back to text|
3. Ibid. |back to text|
4. UNICE, promotion leaflet. |back to text|
5. Personal interview with Keith Richardson, Brussels, 21 February 1997. |back to text|
6. Phone interview with Keith Richardson, 11 March 1997. |back to text|
7. Ibid. |back to text|
8. Ibid. |back to text|
9. Ibid. |back to text|
10. This can be achieved either by denying the right to veto or by changing voting quotas from one vote per country to votes on a per capita basis. |back to text|
11. Personal interview with Keith Richardson, Brussels, 21 February 1997. |back to text|
12. Phone interview with Keith Richardson, 11 March 1997. |back to text|
13. Ibid. |back to text|
14. Ibid. |back to text|
15. Ibid. |back to text|
16. Personal interview with Keith Richardson, Brussels, 21 February 1997. |back to text|
17. ERT position paper on the Intergovernmental Conference, 28 October 1996. |back to text|
18. ERT, Speaking Note for the Discussion on Issues Concerning the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference, for the ERT Delegation Meeting with Helmut Kohl, Bonn, 30 May 1995. |back to text|
19. Phone interview with Keith Richardson, 11 March 1997. |back to text|
20. Ibid. |back to text|
21. Ibid. |back to text|
22. ERT position paper on the Intergovernmental Conference, 28 October 1996. |back to text|
23. Ibid. |back to text|