Examination of Witness (Questions 160-179)
Mr Chris Welsh and Mr Roberto Ferrigno
7 MAY 2008
Q160 Chairman: Thank you. Let me
start with some general questions for both of you. There was a
specific point made by the Freight Transport Association in its
written material—for which we are grateful—that emphasises
the role of the European Council in setting the main political
agenda for the development of legislation. Can you give us an
indication as to what scope the Freight Transport Association
in your case or a consultancy firm like Weber Shandwick has for
influencing the framework for action set by the European Council,
or is that done at a political level above your heads?
Mr Welsh: It is very much done at a higher political
level well above our heads, but we have very close liaison with
our own Government on, in particular, transport and environment
policy. In the way that we can try and drive a UK agenda, our
policy is to promote a proactive deregulatory approach and to
try to persuade the Council of Ministers to take this approach,
particularly with UK Permanent Representation. We have regular
liaison with the UK Permanent Representation there, but also with
the permanent representations of other Member States. For example,
in a few weeks' time we are working with other industry stakeholders
to organise a meeting with the French permanent representation
for the incoming presidency because there are a number of key
policy issues which the French will take on during the presidency
and we want to have some influence on the way they might take
those issues forward. So the influence we try to bring is in getting
our point of view across and trying to influence in that way.
Q161 Chairman: That indicates your
role in canvassing national authorities and thereby influencing
the European Council, but what about the general framework for
action set by the Commission, for example in the environmental
sphere, the Environment Action Programmes? How far do you have
input into them?
Mr Welsh: Again, we know very well the key Chefs
de Cabinets in the main policy areas of concern to the FTA. Similarly,
we try to influence and explain what the industry agenda is in
those areas. So we are very conscious that we are likely to get
European legislation on the introduction of emissions trading
for the transport sector and that area is of keen interest for
our members, so we would want to ensure that the Emissions Trading
Scheme was introduced in a competitive way. I think probably the
other main area where in industry we have had some influence,
again with other trade associations, is, for example, in promoting
the Lisbon Agenda. Several years back the Commission was clearly
going in one direction, which was very much a regulatory approach
and a lot of legislation we were facing was aimed at regulating
the Transport market. We were of the view that this was making
Europe uncompetitive compared with other parts of the world. So
a good example of influencing key EU institutions was to get firmly
behind the Lisbon Agenda and to take every opportunity we had
in those areas to try to influence the case for the Lisbon agenda.
Q162 Chairman: Yes. We understand
that under the Sustainable Development Strategy a number of thematic
strategies were proposed, seven, and that some of them were controversial,
in particular the proposed action in general areas such as urban
environment, sustainable resources, waste recycling, probably,
I think, for reasons such as you have mentioned. Were you active
in suggesting in that context that maybe the strategy should be
modified?
Mr Welsh: The urban area is a big area for us.
Freight has to move in urban areas, and the European Commission
is adopting a green paper at the moment. Our role in influencing
Commission initiatives has been to organise a number of workshops
in this area. What we are very keen to do is to influence that
part of European Commission policy that may be aimed at urban
transport, and the European Commission special study group was
set up to look at urban transport. There is a framework programme
which is being promoted by the Commission to provide funding to
promote urban freight or the understanding of freight in the urban
environment. So, yes, we have been in at the very, very beginning
with the Commission officials and indeed as far up as the Director-General
of DG Transport to ensure that we do have some input.
Q163 Lord Wright of Richmond: Have
you been closely involved in measures to try to control the passage
of illegal immigrants?
Mr Welsh: No, we have not really got too deeply
involved in that, other than four or five years ago when legislation
in fact was coming through the House of Lords at the time. The
then Government was proposing legislation to fine freight operators
for illegal immigrants discovered in vehicles. We tabled amendments
in helping to frame that legislation, and indeed codes of conduct
giving advice to our members about how to manage that. We have
not really got too deeply involved in the broader issues.
Q164 Chairman: Is it possible to
say whether your activities are more directed towards matters
of general policy or more directed towards specific pieces of
legislation that are being developed?
Mr Welsh: A mix of both, but I would say that
in the main it is directed at specific legislation. We have been
very active over the last four or five years on a whole welter
of legislation covering regulations and directives, including
the Working Time Directive, EU drivers' hours rules, the introduction
of digital tachographs to commercial vehicles. These have been
very technical and very detailed pieces of legislation and we
have had to really get involved in the detail of the legislation
to ensure that it is workable.
Q165 Chairman: Just before turning
to Mr Ferrigno, can I just ask, your funding comes from where?
Mr Welsh: Purely from our members. We are a
not-for-profit trade association.
Q166 Chairman: You do not get a grant
from the European Commission?
Mr Welsh: We do not receive any grants from
the European Commission. We are self-funded.
Q167 Chairman: Mr Ferrigno, I am
not sure in my mind to what extent the environment is a prime
interest of yours or whether your activities are entirely general,
but perhaps you would like to respond on the subject we have been
talking about?
Mr Ferrigno: Thank you very much. Actually,
Weber Shandwick, Brussels, are on 60 per cent of our public affairs
activities.
Chairman: I am afraid we have to suspend this
session.
The Committee suspended from 4.24 pm to
4.33 pm for a division in the House
Q168 Chairman: Mr Ferrigno, you were interrupted.
Mr Ferrigno: I was saying that actually more
than 60 per cent of our business activities concern energy and
environmental issues, so yes, we work on those issues and we do
represent the interests of our clients in discussions. You mentioned
before the seven thematic strategies. We work particularly on
the thematic strategy on recycling and, of course, on one of the
most important outcomes of the thematic strategy, the revision
of the Waste Framework Directive, which is the major piece of
European legislation on waste management, waste prevention and
waste generation. So definitely we work on this environmental
area, yes.
Q169 Chairman: We have heard evidence
from the World Wildlife Fund. Are you conscious in some of these
connections, either of you, Mr Ferrigno first, of their activities
perhaps in a different sense from yours in any of these spheres?
Mr Ferrigno: I saw Mr Tony Long leaving the
room. We have known each other for 15 years. Also, because I have
to say that before joining Weber Shandwick I worked also for some
environmental NGOs, notably Greenpeace International in Amsterdam,
so yes. Actually, one of the tasks we are assigned by our clients
very often is just to create platforms to bring together different
stakeholders to discuss new legislation, the revision of the existing
legislation and very often those platforms or even coalitions
bring together environmental NGOs, business organisations, some
local authorities, and we organise room for discussion, for possibly
cooperation, or even confrontation sometimes, among the different
interests that need to be challenged in the new legislation.
Q170 Chairman: That sounds, if I
may say so, quite a transparent exercise where there is an open
exchange of views?
Mr Ferrigno: There is an open exchange of views
and I have to stress the point that as a consultancy organisation
we mainly work with the European Parliament. This means that we
work with the one of the three institutions, the other two being
the Council and the Commission, which is traditionally more open
and transparent in taking on board the different interests expressed
by the different groups.
Q171 Chairman: If you make written
submissions to any of the institutions, are they in fact open
for inspection by other lobbying bodies or are they simply for
the eyes of the recipient?
Mr Ferrigno: For instance, we can support the
Members of the Parliament in writing, discussing amendments to
legislation, and this is something which relates to the public
office of a Member of the Parliament. So in theory, yes, there
is no restriction and we cannot impose any restriction on these
kinds of activities.
Q172 Chairman: But in practice some
of the communications, would I be right, would be unknown to other
people? Oral communications, discussions with a Member of the
Parliament, or indeed with a Commissioner or Director-General,
would be something that other people would not know about?
Mr Ferrigno: Yes, of course. If you meet personally
a Member of the Parliament or an officer from the Commission,
those remain personal and private meetings.
Q173 Baroness O'Cathain: When you
have these discussions in a room where you sometimes have confrontation,
do you aim to come out with ideas to initiate legislation so that
then in turn there is an agreement of the people within the room
that it would be a very good idea to tackle one of these ideas,
the energy ideas, in a specific way and then muster the forces
in order to draw up a programme to influence—you say the
European Parliament first, but the Commission and then the Council?
Is that the way it is done?
Mr Ferrigno: Yes. Now there is an established
procedure by which the Commission regularly organises those stakeholder
meetings.
Q174 Baroness O'Cathain: I see, it
is the Commission then, it is not you?
Mr Ferrigno: No. This is the official level,
of course. So this is the starting point. For instance, if the
Commission thinks of projects, to initiate a new piece of legislation
or to revise an existing piece of legislation now traditionally
they call for a stakeholders' consultation. There are, I think,
more than 100 stakeholders' consultations ongoing these days on
different pieces of new legislation or revision, or adaptation
of existing legislation. So this is a formal process which is
now very well established. So the Commission initiates this process.
We may act within this process of public consultation by focusing
maybe on a specific aspect of the Commission's proposal, the Commission's
discussion, and we may call for the interests of different stakeholders
on specific issues. You mentioned thematic strategies. They are
very general. They were controversial, but they are very general.
Then the work we do by representing, of course, some interest,
is that we identify some issues which can be highlighted during
the discussion and which could be brought to the attention of
the legislator. So we call different stakeholders to discuss these
specific issues and possibly, if an agreement is reached, use
this critical mass of stakeholders at the consultation within
the official procedure to try to influence then the outcome of
legislation, of course.
Q175 Lord Bowness: Clearly, you are
deeply involved in this lobbying process, but can you objectively
tell us how effective you think that is in bringing about new
legislation or actually altering the shape of what has been proposed
by the Commission?
Mr Ferrigno: We look at the new policy-making
process as a circular process. This is not a linear process. There
is not a real starting point with different lines, this is a circular
process. The three institutions, the Commission, the Council and
the Parliament, particularly because of the inter-institutional
agreements, work all around the clock. It is an ongoing process.
You need really to spot the right moment at the right place where
you get into the process. Of course, there is always a form of
starting point for a new piece of legislation and the closer you
are to the starting point and to the Commission, which has the
rights of initiating it, the better for trying to influence the
process. You may succeed or you may not succeed. It depends also
on how much alliance you have in this process because, as you
know, the policy-making in Brussels is heavily orientated towards
consensus. It is not like in the United States, or other Members
of the European Union, but the European Union tends to be leaning
towards a consensus for the adoption of new pieces of legislation.
So yes, you may be effective in influencing a specific piece of
legislation if you are timely, if you are focused and possibly
you have allies. We used to say that the most powerful lobby in
Brussels is the national governments.
Mr Welsh: I can give you two examples, I think,
where we have influenced and initiated legislation. Much of what
Roberto said I would confirm, the use increasingly of the European
Commission, through stakeholder meetings, to ascertain broad views
from a range of stakeholders. But that does not stop maybe a well-established
organisation like ourselves from trying to take the initiative.
Often that is to help the Council and the European Commission
to get a debate going. One way we did this was last June. We were
concerned in the UK about the safety and condition of foreign
heavy goods vehicles on our roads. In order to promote the better
sharing of data about the standards of vehicles coming into this
country and to get a more uniform system of enforcement of such
vehicles, we organised our own workshop in Brussels where we invited
the European Commission, Members of the European Parliament and
a number of Member States, including in particular East European
countries and the accession countries. We had quite high ranking
Commission people come along and prominent MEPs in the relevant
committees to participate in the workshop. As a result we were
able to get an understanding of the problem and of the need for
the sharing of data and getting common standards for safety. The
European Commission has taken on board many of the ideas which
came out of that workshop and it has assisted the Commission in
framing legislation. The second example I can give is when I worked
with the European organisation, the European Shippers' Council.
We felt that there was a community interest in ensuring that we
had an external trade policy which promoted an open markets policy
for our overseas exports and the shipping services. We worked
closely with the presidency and other Member States in Coreper
to organise a Council seminar on this particular issue, and again
we invited Member States' representatives and other prominent
people from the key EU institutions. I would not necessarily say
that they took up our ideas with alacrity, but it was an opportunity
for industry to put its view across to all EU governments in the
Council, which proved to be a very successful event. So I think
that organisations which are well known and respected and recognised
by the Commission and the other institutions as being knowledgeable
about their subjects, and have something to offer in terms of
legislation, it is possible to move outside of the formal frameworks
to influence the framing of legislation and to move a process
forward.
Q176 Lord Rosser: This is going to
be put in a very simple form and no doubt you will say it is not
as simple and straightforward as that, but if you want to initiate
new proposals who do you want to get on board first and most of
all? Is it the Commission, is it the Council and national governments,
or is it the Parliament, or are they all of equal importance?
Secondly, if you do not want to initiate new proposals but you
want to amend or alter proposals already made, who do you want
to get on board first? Is it the Commission, the Council and national
governments, or is it Parliament, or are they all of equal importance?
Mr Welsh: Certainly, if you are initiating legislation
you can do it in the way I have just described. However, the European
Commission is the main promoter of new legislation, that is the
prime body to do this, and it is actually a relatively open organisation.
You will find that administrators within the Commission who are
responsible for particular policy areas, certainly in the transport
area with which I am very familiar, are relatively bright people,
often quite young people, have a lot of responsibility very early
on in developing legislation. It is a bottom-up organisation as
much as a top-down organisation, so often working with a very
bright young administrator in the European Commission who wants
to move things and get things done is a very good way of promoting
legislation, especially if it is obviously consistent with the
general thrust of where the Commission is going in that particular
area. They are able to often promote policy proposals internally
within the Commission right up to heads of units and beyond. Again,
I have had experience over the 15 or 20 years I have been dealing
with European institutions of sometimes going that route rather
than the top-down route, because you can only get in once or twice
a year, maybe, to see the European Commissioner, but the administrators
responsible for the files are there all the time. In terms of
amending legislation as it goes through, if you really think the
European Commission has got it wrong and you have got evidence
of the way the legislation will work in practice—that is
where the power of our members is very important because we can
actually take the practical people from the industry along and
tell them, "This won't work because of A, B, C"—that
is one way where by sheer strength of argument, , you can say,
"This is not going to be good legislation." The reality
is however that once legislation gets to the first reading or
second reading within the European Parliament then the opportunity
is taken to make amendments to that legislation by encouraging
MEPs to support our amendments to help shape or influence the
final outcome.
Q177 Lord Rosser: If it is a new
proposal you would put the Commission as more important than either
the Council or the Parliament? Not that the others are not important,
but the Commission is where you would go?
Mr Welsh: For me, it is the European Commission,
yes.
Q178 Chairman: Can I, before going
to Mr Ferrigno, just ask you to comment on this: you have mentioned
the role of bright young individuals within the Commission. How
far do such individuals effectively need to put forward proposals
in whatever area might seem to them to be likely to attract support
in order to justify their existence, to promote their careers?
How far is there an internal dynamic?
Mr Welsh: My experience is that the European
Commission is a very lean organisation. It does not actually employ
very many people and they are more short of resources rather than
there is a largesse of officials there to do it. So that generally
tends to be the problem rather than there being a vast army of
bureaucrats there to pursue legislation.
Mr Ferrigno: If I may add one consideration?
The Commission is the only body which has the right of initiative
according to the Treaty, but of course experience teaches us that
very rarely the Commission initiates new legislation without having
ensured political support from the Council because this must be
clear in the way the EU policy-making process works, otherwise
there would be a major institutional crisis and stalemate. Conflicts
may arise, but usually when the Commission starts a new legislative
process you can be sure they have already gained the support,
if not the unanimity of the Council then at least the great majority
of Member States.
Q179 Lord Rosser: But you would still
say that from your point of view the Commission is the one, from
your point of view, than either the Parliament or national governments,
or the Council?
Mr Ferrigno: The Commission is the only one,
yes, which has the right to initiate legislation.
|
