The Brussels Business Page #3

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I'm fascinated.

That's probably a good word

to put me as a description.

Lobbying is always ...

... understood as a bit of

a dirty work, but it's just ...

... networking, just contact

between human beings.

The world is very

small, actually.

The people we have to reach out

actually at the end of the day ...

... is becoming

smaller and smaller.

If you know the

right person ...

... actually, always gonna be about

100 persons that are keepers.

The rest are

moving around.

You know that I, actually, the next

week I have a appointment with a ...

... someone from the

Taiwan delegation and ...

... in Brussels ...

We'll talking about ...

Companies are

global nowdays.

And therefore the

American companies, ...

... the Chinese companies, the

Indian and Taiwanese companies, ...

... are actually, my highlights. We are

working together for the same purpose, ...

... which is to

open up the market.

I have contacts friends

in other countries.

And we have actually established

global services coalition, ...

... so we working together to

push and put the pressure ...

... for the same purpose.

The word 'lobbying' is about actually,

working in the lobby of the hotel.

And meeting the people ...

... with which I'm going to go

in a decision-making meeting.

Ok, shall we go?

Shall we go?

You have to be first

well informed, ...

... consistent and modest.

The world is changing,

people are changing everyday ...

... so I'm always very

careful in what I'm saying.

I am very careful about

what is right today ...

... might not be

right tomorrow.

It's because we are on the

long-term basis. My job it's ...

... not going to be pretending that I'm

going to change the world tomorrow.

And the only way

for me to deliver ...

... is to meet and meet again and

repeat and convey messages.

1993. was the year

when the EU was born, ...

... to us that's been sold

as a political project.

But these letters that we

have found in December ...

... pointed in a totally

different direction.

The files showed that the ER and the European Commission ...

... were meeting

on a regular basis.

The tone is amazingly

jovial and informal.

However, all that went

on in complete secrecy.

ERT and the European

Commission work hand in hands.

In 1984. 'Missing links'

was published.

And immediately after the European

Commission sets up a working group ...

... with ERT, on

exactly this topic.

In January 1985. Wise

Dekker, CEO of Philips, ...

... presents his

'Europe 1990' ...

... and his action plan

for the single market.

10 days later, Jacques Delors, new

president of the European Commission ...

... gave a speech about the single

market in the European Parliament ...

... which sounds like the

echo of Dekker speech.

In June 1985. the Lord Caulfield,

Vice-President of the Commission ...

... published his famous

single market 'White Paper'.

Copy/Paste

of Dekker plan.

Every 6 months there

was an EU summit.

And every 6 months the ER met. Just a few days before.

Location and date

were kept confidential.

The booking was made

two years in advance.

They met at that

level twice a year.

One of them took on

responsibility of ...

... arranging the meeting.

So often they would meet

in some fairly nice place.

We met once in the

opera house in Milan.

We met in a big

museum in Germany.

We met in Royal

Palace in London.

And they were arranged

for the Prime Minister or ...

... Foreign minister

or whoever ...

... to come and talk.

Sometimes it was

very impressive.

When everybody was struggling

to join the single currency, ...

... I can to this day remember

the Finance Minister of Spain ...

... when there was a

general elections, he said, ...

... 'Dont bother. Whoever

wins this general election ...'

'... Spain will do

whatever is necessary.'

It's a terrible

strong message.

He felt able to speak for

the other parties as well ...

... because he knew

that Spain is determined.

That kind of things

is very impressive.

We talked to a

French Prime Minister ...

... who had a lot of doubts

about world free trade.

One of our people,

may have been Norwegian.

Somebody who wouldnt normally

get mauch of a chance to talk ...

... to a French Prime

Minister, he said, ...

... 'You've got to do this, Prime Minister.

You've got to be a part of this ...'

'... free trade

movement.'

And then one of the German

chemical people spoke up ...

... and said the same thing.

'We need free trade.'

'European business

need free trade.'

'France must

not block it.'

And I dont think that the French

Prime Minister took that seriously.

Because no

French businessman ...

... would talk to him

in those terms. Well, ...

... I think it's important to see

that the ERT was club ...

... of top businessman

and it operated as a club.

There were no delegates,

they turned up in person.

Talking to other members

at their own level.

So it functioned like a club,

like any other club, ...

... like a church

club or dance club.

When they met, ...

... if you put the Italian

car manufacturer ...

... and a German chemical

manufacturer together ...

... they discovered that they

have common problems.

They are all worried

about barriers to trade.

They are all worried about

skill of young people ...

... who were

trying to get jobs.

They are all worried about

the world financial system.

And so, all the time we

are meeting this way ...

... and these people would give

48 hours, which is a lot of time, ...

... and then all

go home. And ...

... we would hope they

would spread the message ...

... to their own colleagues,

to their own countries ...

... and to their own governments,

to their own politicians.

You know, to talk

more widely about it.

Saying that we need to build

Europe that works better.

Because without

Europe we are lost.

Left behind was a clear message

to the following EU summit ...

... for the heads of

goverments a few days later.

Adopt this

single market ...

... and monetary union,

infrastructure projects, ...

... flexible labor market,

deregulation, ...

... downsized public services,

austerity measures ...

... and so on, a whole

Neoliberal agenda for them.

It was the message of the

ERT you could find it ...

... also elsewhere in kind

of a business circles. But ...

... what we found

very scary was the ...

... very close cooperation

and personal links also ...

... between ERT and the European

Commission, in particular.

So basically, our picture got

confirmed by American scholar ...

... steppin' in to the topic,

Maria Green Cowles.

I was interested in ...

... doing something about Europe,

something about the EU.

Here in the US

we really didnt ...

... know much about the

single market program ...

... until our business people here

in US brought it to Congress.

And all of sudden there was this big

disscusion about fortress Europe ...

... and that the European Community

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