November 19, 2006
The Brussels bombshell club
For a Brussels reporter chasing controversy and rough and ready action, a few hurdles stand in the way.
These include arcane policy discussions that mean little outside the Brussels bubble and endless talk of the need for EU-wide co-operation to avoid dispute - hardly zippy material for stories.
But then there is Viviane Reding, telecoms commissioner and a former journalist.
Along with Neelie Kroes, competition commissioner, and Charlie McCreevy, internal market policeman, Ms Reding is one of the few card-carrying members of Brussels’ "bombshell politics" club.
Take this example. On Thursday, Ms Reding called for a pan-European uber regulator for the telecoms sector to ensure that countries followed market rules and didn’t protect big companies from smaller competitors.
She knows that there is zero appetite for an EU institution that would completely squash the powers of national telecoms watchdogs such as Ofcom in the UK.
Countries stamped out the idea when they last discussed it in 1999 and big member states have little interest in reviving it.
But is Ms Reding developing a technique of coming out with outlandish ideas that she knows are implausible - so that she can return with the proposal that she really wants?
Under this theory, she would say next year that she had listened to the criticism of a possible EU regulator and would instead suggest a compromise.
This would call for the European Commission - and her - to get its long-hoped for aim of greater powers over the decisions of national telecoms watchdogs.
Ms Reding’s adopted this method of "nuclear" politics before - with results. In February she proposed swingeing legislation that would force mobile phone companies to slash lucrative roaming fees.
She watered down the plans at the last minute, but was still able to propose comprehensive laws that went much further than most big operators could stomach.
The flamboyant Luxembourger with an immaculate coiffure said then that she had been in politics for long enough to know that you didn’t put your final offer on the table at the start.
Such methods must wreck the nerves of executives of big telecoms companies and governments, who never know her true intentions. But if nothing else, it stirs controversy - and stories.
Sarah Laitner
