A six-month stint observing the inner workings of the Commission is to be shown on prime-time television

'FLY ON THE WALL' OPENS UP BRUSSELS

BBC producers Nigel Gardner and Jenny Clayton venture inside the Commission

THE European Commission is the bête noir of Eurosceptics, the main target of their anger. To many, it is the symbol of everything that is wrong with the Union.

But few people really know what goes on behind its doors in Brussels. Who knows, for example, what motivates this diverse group of 20 politicians, or what vision united in common purpose a British former Tory home secretary and a former leader of the opposition Labour Party.

Who knows even which commissioner was recently told: "Go back to your own country, you silly moo." Rude, but, as we found out, commissioners would rather have contact with some of the Union's citizens than none at all.

Keen to dispel its image as secretive and distant, the Commission gave us unique access to its inner sanctum. As the weeks went by we found the Commission refreshingly open.

They are an odd collection, the commissioners Nominated by their own countries for a five-year term, their appointment may have little to do with acumen. Rather, in many cases, it is a way of removing them from the domestic political scene. Commissioners, therefore, can be up-andcoming or down-and-out, movers or time-servers. As commissioner responsible for the single currency, Yves-Thibault de Silguy is definitely a mover and shaker. A dapper French aristocrat, he often advised French premiers before the move to Brussels. Now, with the most politically volatile job in the Commission, he surrounds himself with a high-flying elite from the French civil service.

Alone in this den of Francophones we found Patrick Child, a young Englishman. Seconded from the British Treasury, he is an example of the way the Commission acts as a magnet for some of the UK's brightest and best.

While British politicians equivocate over the introduction of a single currency, Child is busy making it happen.

The single currency dominated work during our six months in the Commission. Wherever we went with De Silguy - in Commission or ministerial meetings, with his advisers, in a lift talking conspiratorially to Single Market Commissioner Mario Monti, or in hotels - the single currency was never far from his lips. But De Silguy knows that he must spread his message into the wider world if he is to succeed.

In a supermarket just outside Paris, goods are being priced in euros as part of a scheme to familiarise people with the fledgling currency. De Silguy is on the spot to lend his weight to the experiment, explaining at the check-out: "I ambuying two litres of bleach in euros," and doing the conversion in his head. See, it's easy, he seems to be saying.

The project he is determined to see through is masterminded from an executive power-style office: blue carpets, expensive leather and light polished wood, with a view over the centre of Brussels.

In contrast, two floors away in the Commission headquarters is the den of Emma Bonino, the Italian commissioner for fishing. As a former politician in the Italian Radical Party, her office has wooden floors, Tibetan aid posters and a cluttered desk. Somewhere in the piles of paperwork is the hate mail she received from British fishermen angry at her plans for a 40 per cent cut in fishing quotas. In a locked drawer she keeps the letter calling her a "silly moo" Bonino is surprisingly phlegmatic at the criticism, justifying it by saying she prefers people to have contact with Brussels rather than seeing commissioners as inaccessible bureaucrats. Italians, she explains, simply do not write letters to politicians as the British do.

If anybody knows the inner secrets of the Commission, it is Sylvie the flower lady. She became a familiar figure as we spent weeks hanging around the Commission's corridors, becoming part of the euro furniture. Only she knows which commissioner prefers which flowers.

Presiding over this mix of international politics and floral diplomacy is Commission President Jacques Santer. In his suite of offices on the 12th floor, the tone is hushed, the atmosphere statesmanlike, the desk huge. Santer speaks French, German, and Letzebürgesch in turn to his staff. He is an attractive figure, easy to get on with, more like a friendly uncle than a world leader.

But although Prime Minister John Major backed him for the job, Santer has proved no less committed to the goal of closer European integration than his predecessor Jacques Delors.

At the Commission's Wednesday meetings, Santer behaves rather like a school headmaster, with secretary-general David Williamson, the Commission's most senior official, like his head prefect as he checks off the register.

Here Santer is almost peremptory. Leon's here. Van Miert? Oui. Bangemann? Where's Bangemann? Où est-il? Oreja is excused, he's giving a press conference. Kinnock? Où est-il? Fischler? Oui. Flynn? Oui."

Padraig Flynn is the Irish commissioner in charge of social policy. We were in his office when the result of his biggest battle with the British (over the 48-hour working week directive) came through. His chief spokeswoman Barbara Nolan received the fax from the European Court of Justice. "It looks like very good news for us!" she exclaimed gleefully. "The court has rejected the British case. Better than we expected. I must ring the commissioner."

Some have seen it all before. Marcello Burattini revels in the title of the Commission's head of protocol. He has been in the Commission for 40 years. Once he was mistaken by the Pope for Jacques Delors. Burattini organises hundreds of such visits by world leaders each year.

He talks of the time he had to send President Bill Clinton sightseeing when he arrived too early for his appointment. And then there was the African statesman who arrived with his 14 wives, assuming the Commission's hospitality was limitless. Burattini had to turn them away.

But we found few closed doors. The Commission is one of the most open and accessible bureaucracies in the world. It also has few of the hang-ups of traditional national civil services.

But some doors remained closed. Franz Fischler. the commissioner in charge of agriculture, was busy with the mad cow crisis most of the time we were in Brussels. We did not get to see in his office, but we heard he has quite a nice painting of a cow on the wall.