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Reforming the European Commission: Driving Reform from the Grassroots

The Word in the Corridors The first rumblings of Reform were felt very much at the grass roots. The resignation of the Santer Commission in March 1999 was akin to a major and equally unexpected earthquake which shook the Commission from top to bottom. In particular, the famous phrase in the first report of the Committee of Wise Men, namely 'that it is difficult to find anyone in the European Commission with the slightest sense of responsibility', reverberated for weeks and months along the corridors of Brussels. The events of March 1999, which provided the starting point for the Reform process upon which the Prodi Commission subsequently embarked, had both positive and negative consequences for the management of what has proved to be the most significant process of change ever undertaken within the Commission. Negative, because it effectively stigmatised every official of the Institution as irresponsible, and so made more difficult the task of motivating staff to take a constructive approach to the modernisation of their administration, working practices and conditions of employment. The significance of this message from on high was amplified further because, as anyone with a passing knowledge of the European Commission and its staff can confirm, it was and remains palpably untrue. These events defined the context for Reform, and focussed attention from day one on the absolute necessity to place effective communication within the Commission at the heart of the change process. It would be pointless to pretend that the Reform was greeted with cheers of joy by staff when it was launched in 2000. Public sector reforms that impact on the careers and financial benefits of public servants never are. The idea of administrative reform was not entirely new, as a first attempt at internal modernisation had been undertaken under the Santer Commission in the form of the MAP 2000 programme (aimed at modernising administrative procedures and personnel policy). In that context, rumours that the