The continuing decline and fall of the European Commisssion There is a more than obvious decline in the performance and image of the European Commission on matters relating to financial corruption, its ability to ignore serious human rights abuse and the implementation of a poorly thought out administrative reform. Legalistics This European Commission is demonstrating itself to be less responsive to serious and offensive states of affairs than the previous Commission which was sacked. Under President Prodi, the Commission has demonstrated an ability to take on more than it can handle. Nothing has been done well. In several cases absolutely nothing has resulted, in practical terms, from initiatives. There are two reasons for this failure. One is the excessive displacement activity organized by individual Commissioners, which consists of coming up with yet new "initiatives" to compensate for former oversights or failures. This only adds to the cumulative track record of poor performance. The other, and perhaps the most important reason, is the now de facto habit of Commissioners, and Commission service staff, appealing to procedures and legality when questioned about oversights and failures. It would seem that now, no matter how harmful a situation is, the European Commission can appeal to its having followed "correct procedures" or of "not being told" or the "law" to wash its hands of evident corruption and human rights abuse. This blinkered but convenient resort to "legalistics" means the European Commission not only can, but has abandoned its social and economic responsibility to the people of Europe. Some of the more serious examples are set out below. Financial corruption The last European Commission was sacked en mass in 1999. One of the specific issues pointing to maladministration was the allegation that Edith Cresson, one of the Commissioners, had paid her dentist about Euro100,000 for 24 pages of subsequently-deemed worthless notes and that she, and her subordinates, falsified contracts, forged other people's handwriting and embezzled EU funds for personal gain. If that be the measure of wrongdoing justifying the sacking of the Commission, the current Commission should have been sacked a long time ago. One of the perennial counter-claims about accusing the Commission or Commission services of wrongdoing is that more money is diverted within Member states by governments and those participating in and managing EU-financed initiatives. Well, the Commission has done next to nothing to control this too and the European Parliament, whose job it is to oversee the Commission in this respect, is also an abject failure in this responsibility. So we are left with a more visible manifestation of financial corruption, that which occurs within the Commission in association with "direct" contracts under procurement contracts for services and goods. Solbes, "I don't know nothin'!" It is no good Commissioners lamenting that they cannot "control" things they "know nothing about". The Eurostat affairs has been doing the rounds for years but the Commission, frankly, seems to have had other priorities. The Commission intones that "structures" are being put in place to control such things whereas in the meantime the floodgates are open and public money continues to be wasted. It is obvious that any actions taken to control corruption should have short term fail-safe methods of stemming the tide as medium to longer term measures are introduced. The Commission, does not seem to thnk that way. It prefers to shuffle around grandiose declarations of "intent" and "implementation of structures". In the meantime the Commissioners point out that the monitoring of the procedures overseeing the alleged corruption was the responsibility of "other" agencies. This division of responsibility based upon procedural regulations is a bureaucratic technique of avoiding responsibility. However, harm is being done and in spite of this legalistic tactic the Commission still remains responsible for the loss of public funds and the harm done. The ability to hide behind "legal structures" is irresponsible and inexcusable. Denial of human rights The full extent of the unacceptable consequences of the legalistic approach by the European Commission can be seen in the area of human rights abuse. There has been a troubling exchange of correspondence between officials in the European Commission, and other EU organizations, and an organization called the European Committee on Romani Emancipation (ECRE). The ECRE website records a paper trail, stretching back to 1999, and consisting of a litany of failure of the European institutions to respond to clear and important requests for action relating to human rights abuse. ECRE has been calling attention to a terrible European human rights abuse in at least three of the countries about to join the European Union. The  governments of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia provide generous financial incentives to rural local authorities to segregate Roma children into Special Schools. The classification of normal Roma children as in need of "special education" is undertaken by employees of these governments; the classification is entirely fraudulent. The children receive no education and none of this money benefits them. The money flowing through this system amounts to some Euro 200 million each year, something like Euro 2 billion since the "fall of communism". This system is modelled directly on the Nazi "school system" for Sinti, Jews and Roma in the 3rd Reich. The number of children forced in to this system has risen four-fold in the last 14 years, since the "fall of communism". That is, the newly-formed "democratic" governments are the most guilty of abuse including all current governments in power in these countries now. Commissioner Gunter Verhugen reports human rights horrors to an enthralled Commission Commissioner Gunter Verhugen and his Department have failed to report adequately on the ongoing denial of education to Roma children. The Czech, Hungarian and Slovak governments have simply elected to ignore European Human Rights law. ECRE published a report in February of this year spelling out these details. ECRE undertook the fieldwork using volunteers made up of Roma and non-Roma volunteers and succeeded in forcing this issue out into the open with their report. Since the issue of the report, none of the European organizations approached by ECRE have responded to their questions and requests for action. Gunter Verhugen, Enlargement Commissioner, ignored letters from as far back as 1999 advising him of this growing scandal and has failed to respond to the report issued by ECRE. ECRE sent a Petition to the European Parliament in February 2003, requesting financial sanctions against these countries until they solve this problem and comply with Article 13. The European Parliament does not appear to be very effective since it has yet to manifest whether or not it will progress with an inquiry. ECRE wrote to Romano Prodi, the European Commission President, on 15th May 2003, asking for an explanation as to why negotiation chapters, which contain remedies for this human rights abuse, were closed. In this letter ECRE also raises the serious issue that, because the Commission failed to report the scale and nature of this widespread human rights abuse, the accession votes by the European Parliament and the Council are flawed. President Prodi has not replied to the letter. ECRE also sent a complaint to the European Ombudsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, on 28th May 2003 specifically concerning the behaviour of the European Commission. The outcome of this exchange is that the Ombudsman cannot do anything since he is barred inquiring into the activities of the Commission on the topic of accession. This represents a significant hole in the "safety net" which the Ombudsman is supposed to provide. In the meantime ECRE emailed Patrick Cox, the President of the European Parliament concerning the position of the European Parliament on the issue of the Commission not making the full extent of this abuse apparent before the vote on Accession. Someone from Mr. Cox's office replied but had obviously not read the email. ECRE replied repeating the questions but Patrick Cox has not replied. Staff at the Commission shrug their shoulders saying "they were never asked" to report on this issue, which is not true. That the countries concerned, "only had to introduce Human Rights legislation rather than solve the problem." And, in the meantime, in the shadow of such "legalistics" thousands of innocent Roma children languish in special schools, receiving no education waiting to be thrown on the job scrap heap when they leave "school". All part of official policy. Human rights, it would seem, in Europe, in the full knowledge of the Commission President, Commissioners and their staff and the European Ombudsman are "someone else's responsibility" and, as a result, do not apply to everyone in Europe. Administrative Reform? Neil Kinnock took on the challenge of introducing sweeping changes in the efficiency of the European Commission's administration but according to Commission staff, the so-called reforms will achieve the reverse. As a result, the image of the institution and its de facto capabilities have become compromised. Staff at the European Commission have held several strikes on the issue. There is indeed an element of pay and pensions in the current confrontation but there is something far more sinister going on. Institutional reforms need to facilitate the interaction of European Commission staff with the European population so as to generate, in a proactive fashion, broadly approved activities. Such an open administration requires a strong collegiate function in the sense that staff members be encouraged to assist one another with information and guidance. This is important in the many so-called horizontal issue which, those working "vertical" services, need to understand and deal with. A robust and open Commission staff structure can proactively assist and develop activities in the direct interests of the people of Europe. Some essentials For this to be possible, top management cannot apply a "legalistic" approach to their staff. They need to take on the responsibility for what happens in their staff groups. Staff should be free to manage funds and liaise with their funded "clients" in an open fashion supported by reasonably light procedural requirements. In this way, they can spend more time working on client issues than satisfying administrative demands. Part of the new reform package includes a provision for any funds advanced by staff on a project or programme which turn out to be misused can be recovered from the staff members pay packet. Staff cannot afford to be burdened with the responsibility of such a threat where "responsibility" can be allocated by managers. Quite often misuse of funds is achieved by grantees knowingly misleading Commission staff as to the true application of funds. This has become a fine art in Central Europe, for example. Many Commission staff see the administrative reforms are undermining the collegiate structure at the Commission because it is introducing and extending a "legalistic approach" to staff relations. This has already thrown staff into direct competition with senior management who push responsibility for project and programme management down to their middle ranking staff. The result has been an atomization of staff collaboration. More and more staff are concerned that a mistake made by someone in carrying out a reasonable decision, will end up docking their own pay. An example of the close-to-mad requirements is that everyone within what were formally collegiate work groups, now have contractual relationships each with the other. This means if something unexpected crops up, which is quite normal at the Commission, concerned staff, being asked to do something which is not in their contract, refuse to undertake the task until the contract is modified. Some middle to senior management have complained that the system is wide open to abuse, on the part of those staff who want to do everything by the book. The by-the-book mentality is being reinforced by the disciplinary elements within the new reforms. "In the end," commented a middle level manager, "the system has become self-defeating. The member of staff who wants to deliver a professional performance, in spite of changing circumstances, risks punishment." A senior manager who agreed that the working environment at the Commission is deteriorating commented ruefully that, "We haven't come to the situation yet, where if a bureaucrat tries to correct an administrative error he ends up as an enemy of the state, as in the case of Sam Lowry in the film Brazil, but it is neither fun not particularly professional anymore. The cause of this is not the staff but rather the mind set of those who have imposed this new system." Naturally there are ways round such impasses by inventing all-embracing competencies and functions. In this way the old flexibility can be somewhat regained but then the existing basis for assessing performance becomes irrelevant. The former collegiate, and maybe somewhat comfortable, working style of the Commission has evaporated. Many capable staff who previously managed large budgets did not request this year, any budget at all. "There is a management "implosion" going on and Kinnock and his types just don't see it". commented a Senior Commission staff member last week, "The environment is really bad, people are beginning not to trust one another." Such systems, far from increasing transparency and efficiency, end up with little transparency and overall efficiency plummets. This is because decision making is so stifled by procedures that staff become less proactive and enter a state of gridlock. But to listen to the Commissioners, who welcome this "legalistic" approach not only to staff relations but everything else which surrounds them, everything is just fine. They can appear before parliamentary committees and point at some procedural responsibility of someone else as a defense against just about anything. Spectacular failure The Commission already shows poor transparency in some of its critical activities. These have surfaced in ongoing financial corruption, ongoing horrendous human rights abuse and the internal destruction of staff relations. And yet the European Convention produced a proposal for a new European Constitution which emphasises the central role of the European Commission in the future. But European citizens need to reflect on the future utility of such an institution which has failed to engage and inform in such a spectacular fashion, on such fundamentally important issues. There can be no doubt however that this Commission is in crisis. Sources: Real News Online European Options APE Team