Frans Andriessen
Three-term European Commissioner who deftly navigated the era of ‘mutton wars’ and set-aside
FRANS ANDRIESSEN, who has died aged 89, was a Dutch lawyer who, as a three-term European Commissioner, restructured Europe’s steel industry, curbed some of the EC farm budget’s excesses and paved the way with Washington for the creation of the World Trade Organisation.
In 12 years in Brussels, eight as Vice-president of the Commission, Andriessen built a reputation for cool, objective ruthlessness as, in turn, commissioner for competition, agriculture and external affairs.
Franciscus Henricus Johannes Andriessen was born in Utrecht on April 2 1929, and educated at the city’s university. He joined the Catholic Housing Institute in 1954, staying there 18 years, latterly as director. From 1958 to 1967 he sat in the provincial assembly, then was elected to the States-general (Parliament). In 1971 he was elected chairman of the Catholic People’s Party in the lower house.
In 1977 he joined Dries van Agt’s centre-right coalition as finance minister. He sought bigger cuts than his party would accept, and in February 1980 tendered his resignation, precipitating a Cabinet crisis that forced Queen Juliana to interrupt a holiday in Austria. The next month he took a seat in the upper house.
Van Agt nominated him to the Commission and Andriessen took up his post in January 1981. He secured the competition portfolio, targeting restrictive practices, with the vastly differing prices of new cars in member states a priority. But he came under fire from Socialist MEPS for blocking legislation on worker participation after objections from Shell and Unilever, and from British members for suggesting that Ravenscraig steelworks should be closed.
With Gaston Thorn stepping down at the end of 1984 Andriessen was canvassed as a potential president of the Commission, but Jacques Delors had the big battalions behind him. Andriessen’s consolation was the vice-presidency and the agriculture portfolio, Brussels’ toughest. Within weeks he foiled a French attempt to build an EC “lamb mountain”.
Negotiating his first farm budget, the stumbling block was German insistence on higher payments to grow cereals; Andriessen complained that the Germans sided with the British on budgetary discipline, yet wanted him to spend more. Germany vetoed the budget after six attempts to agree it.
Autumn 1985 brought the first of several “mutton wars” between Britain and France. Andriessen blamed Britain, accusing Michael Jopling, Minister of Agriculture, of disobeying an “order” to change export arrangements for sheep meat. When French farmers hijacked British lamb consignments, Andriessen suggested an export tax to offset the benefits to British exporters of a weak pound; the Commission overruled him. At the start of 1986 Andriessen recommended a general price freeze for the year. He got his way after a 21-hour negotiating session, and later persuaded member states to accept drastic cuts in milk production.
His next target was grain surpluses, outlining a plan to cut production which introduced the concept of “set-aside”. This was adopted, but only after he blocked ministers’ efforts to sneak grain subsidies into other parts of the budget.
At the start of 1989, Andriessen took the external relations portfolio. The Uruguay Round of GATT talks was at the top of his agenda; as a free-trader he saw a faint hope of breaking the deadlock with America. He began by warning Japan that unless it opened its markets, the EC might refuse it licences for banking in Europe. He also told Britain – to fury at Westminster – that if it did not want to engage fully with Europe it could go back to the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).
The fall of the Berlin Wall that autumn gave Andriessen new priorities. He proposed a “European Economic Space”, enabling EFTA countries to participate in the single market, while opening the door to countries to the East.
Within months, he was suggesting affiliate membership of the EC for former Communist satellites. France distrusted this, but the strategy was carried through, after a scare over whether Romania’s post-ceaucescu government would allow fair elections.
Andriessen’s final two years in Brussels were dominated by the GATT talks. By 1992 he was claiming that the dispute now hinged on “a couple of million tons of European grain”. But that summer he accused America of “harassing” European steel producers for alleged dumping; then France demanded fresh concessions for its farmers.
EC-US talks, with Andriessen and Leon Brittan leading for Europe, made no headway. Then farm subsidy negotiations collapsed, with the outgoing Bush administration blaming Europe; Andriessen promised “countermeasures”.
Ireland’s Agriculture Commissioner Ray Mcsharry resigned, accusing Delors of going behind his back to sabotage an agreement. Delors faced mutiny from commissioners led by Andriessen and Brittan, who resolved to outvote him on GATT, if necessary forcing his resignation. He backed off, and Mcsharry returned.
On November 20 1992 Andriessen and his fellow negotiators finally concluded the GATT agreement on agriculture; the Commission ratified it despite French resistance. Andriessen left Brussels at the turn of the year confident that a full agreement ranging from textiles to intellectual property could be achieved – as it was, enabling the WTO to come into being.
Out of office, he was in demand as one of Europe’s “great and good”. This could bring him into trying company: at a symposium in Copenhagen in 1993 he was incandescent when Sir Alan Walters, Margaret Thatcher’s former economic adviser, suggested the Germans could put a portrait of Hitler on a single European currency.
Andriessen was Professor of European Integration at the Rijksuniversiteit, Utrecht, from 1989. He was a Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion, and held the Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-nassau.
He married Tine Stelling in 1960; they had four children.
Frans Andriessen, born April 2 1929, died March 22 2019