Interview: UNDERSTAND EUROPE

UNDERSTAND EUROPE

Niels Jørgen Thøgersen will never finish communicating the never finished European project, but from March 1 it will be as a private person after 32 year on important positions in the EU

He comes early and goes home late. If some people think that EU officials get a very high salary, then it is true. But about Niels Jørgen Thøgersen one can say that his average salary per hour has been significantly reduced by the many hours, which he throughout 32 years has put into the European project. Now he wants to stop – on February 28 he will leave. That’s the end of being a full-time official, but it is not the end of being a fully committed European with a permanent drive to communicate about the Union, its tasks, the ideas behind it, the project.

The music has been booked for Feb. 28 at the end of the day. Then one of the first (and greatest) Danish contributions to the European institutions will go home from the Berlaymont building as ex-director for lots of communication activities, and he looks very happy about it during the good-bye interview. He does not hide that he was very happy when one of the collaborators of communication Commissioner Margot Wallström asked: “Why in the hell are you leaving NOW?!”

Niels Jørgen Thøgersen’s reply was that he now has finalised his most important projects. The EU has come closer to the citizen, and if anybody says that the EU is far away he replies that the EU is never further away than the nearest telephone:

00800 6 7 8 9 10 11 gives answers on all official languages. This service is called EUROPE DIRECT and is free of charge from any of the 25 member states.

He is very proud of many of the obtained results, f.ex. “Europe by Satellite” and the EUROPA server, but most proud of the telephone, which moved the Union closer to the citizens than anybody had imagined.

A private person, but active for the EU

Q: You leave at a moment when many people say that the mood in the Commission is worse than ever before?

A: I do not feel it that way…. It is a very positive experience that the new member states have entered the EU. New colleagues, who are very well trained and very motivated have influenced the climate very positively. But it is clear that the fall of the Santer Commission started a range of internal reforms….

Q: - which made it all more bureaucratic?

A: Perhaps there is now a mood .. a belief that people want to cheat and therefore it is necessary to keep an eye on them at all times. In my view we have gone too much in the direction of control and not enough based the work on confidence

Q: So it is now more troublesome for the officials?

A: Yes – but this is not why I leave now – if that is what you are fishing for…..

Q: Ok – then why?

A: Because I want to live the second half of my life more intensely and also because it became possible in connection with my 60 years birthday on January 22. And because – as I already said – I have finalised my most important projects.

Q: Are you really able to stay in-active in a period, when the next referendum in Denmark is approaching?

A: It is not sure that I will be quiet. Now I will have more time to look at the substance in many areas – and more time to do things and give my contribution as a private citizen

Q: Concrete plans?

A: No. But I am always stimulated by the debate, so I expect to be very active, especially if I hear or see people spreading false and incorrect information.

About loving the European Union

Q: You leave exactly at the moment Swedish Margot Wallström as the Commission’s Vice-President wants to give the Commission a new profile?

A: Yes. I am convinced that she is very strong and that she can do it. It is great to see that all the plans she so far has put forward are in line with what I have been working for. She wants to communicate, not only to inform. She wants to listen. She represents the good communication.

Q: What is this?

A: To talk with people about topics which are relevant for them.

Q: She has also written a book, where she explains why it is not possible to make people love the EU. Isn’t that what you have tried for 32 years?

A: To love the EU is a political matter. I and my colleagues have tried to make them understand the EU. To make people understand that the EU is a continuous process – a process which makes the EU new and different every day. You will never finish communicating Europe – and I will never fish communicating it.

Q: So if I give this interview the headline “Understand Europe”?

A: That’s fine. My wish is that the lasting result of my work is that more and more people understand the EU

Q: They probably also do so because we today have much more available information about the EU than in March 1973, when you started as head of the Commission’s information office in Copenhagen? 10, 100 or a thousand times more?

A: Yes, thousand times more. At that time we were happy, if we managed to produce a brochure or a magazine

Q: Who created the real Openness in the EU?

A: Sweden

Q: Not the Danish No to Maastricht in 1992?

A: I don’t remember it that way. The Swedish membership gave it the real push. Denmark contributed

The weight of Europe and the world

Q: If we look at other areas than your work with the media and with communication, what is then the political development, which over the years has been most positive seen by an old “European” like you?

A: The weight and importance of Europe. We are now on the political map with our common European values – our influence has increased a lot since the time we were 9, 12, 15 and now 25. It is our common policy towards the outside world I am talking about – and in many areas such as foreign policy, environment, etc. We are a magnetic attraction for the countries around us. This shows in my view that we have not been totally wrong in what we are doing.

Q: And if we talk about disappointments during your years?

A: My biggest disappointment clearly is that the debate on the EU in Denmark is as if we still live in 1972.

Q: Who’s fault is that?

A: Everybody’s

Q: Has it been a problem for you personally as a European official that Denmark has been and is a member state outside several important EU activities?

A: No. But I find it regrettable

Q: Giving difficulties for Danish EU officials?

A: Some Danish colleagues here think so. But I don’t. The only occasion where my Danish passport played a role was at my daily morning meeting right after the Danish no in 1992. More colleagues than my whole own staff turned up, because they wanted to see, if I could explain the result!

Jacques Delors and Gundelach

At the question who the Danish official has seen as the best Commission President and the best Danish Commissioner the replies come swiftly.

A: Jacques Delors had visions and was able to communicate them

Q: But he was the man, whom people in Denmark (and the prime minister) called a European official – to mark the distance?

A: Yes, I think so

Q: And the Danish member of the Commission……

A: Finn Gundelach – not because he was the Commissioner who hired me – but because je was a master in everything here, and he was very active in the Danish debate

Q: The later Danish Commissioners have not done that?

A: Yes, Henning Christophersen did it too – to be honest

Q: The EuroBarometer with opinion polls from all over the EU is still one of your areas of responsibility. What does the Barometer show today?

A: That nice weather is on its way – hopefully not because I leave, but because Margot Wallström sees it as her key task to make us Understand Europe. Let’s say that a high pressure is approaching Brussels – and I am very happy about that.

Q: Also because you and your family stay in Brussels?

A: Yes – efter 17 years HOME is here.

Interview by: journalist Poul Smidt