Fiery Catalan gets foot in the door

JORDI PUJOL, the controversial president of Catalonia, has a vision of the European Union that is federalist to the core.

A small and pugnacious street fighter, he has long made it his policy to tweak Madrid's nose by bypassing it on as many issues as possible. Like many other regional leaders in the EU, Mr Pujol, 63, likes to run his own 'foreign policy' by dealing directly with the hub of power in Brussels.

To the fury of national governments Mr Pujol and others get every encouragement from the European Commission to beat a path directly to its door to discuss their problems or initiatives.

Today, as the Committee of the Regions holds its first official meeting in Brussels, Mr Pujol and other delegates from regional and local governments finally have the soapbox they have been demanding. As the elected representatives of local and regional governments they believe they are closer to the people than officials on the Council of Ministers or members of the European Parliament, and they see the establishment of the committee as a long overdue step in correcting the EU's 'democratic deficit'.

The prospect of regional leaders such as Mr Pujol gaining even more influence within the EU leaves most governments cold. But the tide of decentralisation is running, bringing more and more power to lower levels of government.

Since 1988 the presidents of four of Europe's wealthiest regions (Catalonia, Lombardy, Rhone-Alpes and Baden-Wurttemberg) joined in an alliance that they called 'four motors for Europe'. This inter-regional co-operation was aimed at developing cutting-edge industries in science and technology, bypassing central government in the process. Complete with annual 'summit' meetings between the presidents of the Four Motors, the initiative has led to a multitude of formal government-to-government agreements.

Mr Pujol has never hidden his ambitions for complete self-government for Catalonia, and with the backing of his nationalist Convergencia i Unio (Convergence and Union) party he has become a king-maker in Madrid, upon whom the Prime Minister, Felipe Gonzalez depends for support.

Recognising the danger to their power base from the committee, governments in London, Madrid and Bonn fought tooth and nail to stop it coming into existence. They saw in it the danger that it would make figures like Mr Pujol ever more powerful.

They failed ultimately to block its creation, but ensured that it had only a paltry budget, pounds 8.94m a year, and purely consultative powers over legislation.

Even for highly centralised countries such as Britain, however, the rules of the game are fast changing. The reality of European integration is that regional authorities police EU regulations and directives and supervise the spending of billions of pounds of aid from the budget.

(Photograph omitted)