THE DRIVING FORCE
Rachel Johnson on the deal
Mr Kinnock has done with the people who really run Europe
Brussels 'AND now, if there are no more questions on hormones in beef,' said Signor Prodi's spokesman after he had delivered the day's quota of euronews to us at dictation speed, 'there will be a technical briefing from the cabinet of Neil Kinnock, Commission vice- president in charge of reform, on strategic questions of.. . . '
He might just as well have screamed 'Fire!' as the hacks began to gather up their notebooks and to move calmly, but rapidly, out of the salle de presse in the direction of the bar. But I remained with the swots, for I was keen to see if Kin- nock's people were going to tell the world what was really keeping Neil awake at night. So I sat through the spiel about his whistleblowers' charter and took notes on how the newly appointed Commission, clothed in its hair shirt, would spring-clean la maison from top to bottom.
But Neil's people failed to fess up about the drivers with whom they had had a cri- sis meeting but an hour before. They somehow omitted to mention that Kin- nock, the man who had seen off the unions and Liverpool City Council with a speech so powerful it lifted the hair from the back of the neck, could not shaft the chauffeurs, an 80-strong team of wheezing, Mercedes- buffing, seen-it-all geezers who seem to have him by the short and curlies.
This is what it's all about: the chauffeurs earn a basic salary of £35,000 a year,. and probably double with overtime; they are proper fonctionnaires; and they work alter- nate weeks, a routine made possible by the fact that the Commissioners are all 'Two Jags' here, in the sense that they each have two drivers at their disposal. So, if you allow for their five-week holiday entitle- ment, the chauffeurs work a Stakhanovite 22 weeks a year, with a productivity rate that averages out at five km per hour per working day.
'They're taking the piss,' said my man-, Stephen Morris from DG9 (Administra- tion), which is the Kinnock camp. 'I mean, most have got second jobs. There's one who doubles as a ski instructor in Austria. You know, that one with the year-round suntan.' As far as Mr Klimek was concerned, the moment was ripe. A new Commission had arrived. He was the new broom. It was time for the drivers to sacrifice this life of Riley on the altar of his reform strategy. (The Commissioners, you see, had already made this terrific sacrifice of their own: they were giving up the right to buy their cars and stereos minus VAT.) But, when informed that the number of drivers per Commissioner was to be halved, the drivers went postal. They threatened to strike: a nuclear option, indeed, if you con- sider that this would mean that the 20 Com- missioners would have to use taxis, or even public transport, to get around (and it should not be forgotten that, as a result of the idiotic arrangements here, the top brass is chauffeured continuously between Lux- embourg and Strasbourg, as well as all over Brussels). And Kinnock backed down. Now, Neil, his people and the drivers are in con- tinuous session in a working group to dis- cuss 'future arrangements'.
The drivers hang out, when they're not polishing their cars, in the Loge Chauffeur in Avenue Nerviens, a stone's throw from Prodi's headquarters at the Breydel build- ing. Among the posters of racing cars, the Loge is decorated with cartoons of a preg- nant Kinnock and the words 'The Kinnock Reforms Will Not Be A Happy Event'.
'What do they think, we sleep in our cars?' demanded Jose Martinez, whose face bore the greenish tinge of exhaustion. 'I've just got back from Strasbourg and I'm on call 24 hours a day until next week. The trouble is, people are jealous of us. We are "les plus petits dans l'hierarchie", but we are the only ones who see and talk to the Commissioners every day; we are their confidants so the administration is out to get us.'
'My father got completely smashed last year.' We were sitting in the office of the drivers' representative, Pierre Eveillard, an ex-policeman who heads the Transport Section. Martinez and Eveillard were both smoking Marlboros, lighting each fresh cigarette from an amusing lighter made from a real hand-grenade. In a large glass cabinet, occupying one wall of the office, was a compendious collection of military caps, lead soldiers, and other memorabilia. Behind them were propped some signed photographs.
'Alt yes, Jacques Delors and Roy Jenkins,' said Eveillard, pronouncing the latter's name as Roi Jean-Quinze, as the great man was known a l'gpoque. `Ah yes.' And he gave a heavy, those-were-the-days sigh. 'Jean- Quirize, I would take him for le jogging every morning, at six o'clock.' But yes!' he insist- ed, seeing my jaw drop in disbelief. 'And then, every evening, to the restaurants. I tell you, he was the only Commissioner who really knew about wine.' That sounded more like it.
I waited for my portion of nuggets about Delors, whose bodyguard Eveillard had been for several years. But a misty look had crossed the burly man's face. And as we both gazed at the signed black-and-white photograph of Delors, I suddenly under- stood why the little problem of the chauf- feurs was taking up so much time in Mr Kinnock's diary.
The drivers had instantly spotted that if there was only one driver per Commissioner, then the Commission itself would be spitting in the face of its own, homegrown, Working Time Directive: the one that forbids the good citizens of Europe to work more than 40 hours a week. So they hunkered down to wait for Mr Kinnock to come up with Plan B. And they knew it had better be good. The Commission drivers know where the bodies are buried, all over Brussels. They have taken wives Christmas shopping. They have chauffeured the Commissioner to the dna- a-sept with his mistress. Until now, they per- formed these duties without a murmur, because they had a cushy number.
Mr Kinnock, clearly, is gambling that the drivers have not as yet done much freelance driving for the new Commission- ers (people love to recall the days Martin Bangemann's driver spent chauffeuring spare parts for his boat from the south of France to Gdansk). So he is brokering a compromise. The Commissioners will have one official driver apiece. But they will have a second, if they need one, who will be drawn from a pool of reserve drivers. And this second driver — sur- prise, surprise — is likely to be the same Marlboro Man every time.
Everyone's happy. The same two drivers get to 'serve' their Commissioner, and build up the special relationship both par- ties value so much; and Neil can move tri- umphantly on to his next juicy target: no not the vastly overpaid, overperked Euro- crats. The Commission receptionists. You heard it here first.
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