NEWS ANALYSIS: "So... come on, tell us what Olli Rehn is really like"

Finland wanted a beefy portfolio in the EU Commission, and it sure got one

Olli Rehn

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By Annamari Sipilä in Brussels
     
      I know the secret to getting rich quick in Brussels.
      If only I were to collect just a euro for every time one of my foreign colleagues comes and asks me "What is that Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn really like?"
      Or for every time someone enquires: "What does that Rehn intend to do next?" Or even when someone wonders aloud in my presence: "What did that Rehn chap mean by the sudden sideways glance, and the sort of crooked smile?"
     
It is probably only right and proper that I do not earn a red cent for such questions, since I am completely lousy as a source and as a Rehn-watcher. Usually I just roll my eyes and mutter that Heaven only knows.
      However, the flood of Rehn-related questions is one concrete example of just how much interest there is right now in the EU's Finnish economy supremo.
      The EU's spring this year has been very pronouncedly a financial one.
     
First we had the eurozone countries and the IMF deciding to bail Greece out with a EUR 110 billion loan deal, and before the dust had settled on that one, the Union slapped down a EUR 750 billion stabilisation package to ward off possible monetary crises down the road.
      Now there are plans afoot "to reinforce decisively the economic governance in the European Union", which means an appreciable tightening up of the EU's surveillance of the economic polices of individual member-states.
      The members should get to grips with their burgeoning deficits, or else the whole Union will suffer the consequences.
     
Through all the upheavals of recent weeks and months, one of the central figures has been Olli Rehn.
      It is scarcely any wonder, therefore, that what the holder of the Economic and Monetary Affairs portfolio says and does is attracting enormous interest.
      Right now, Mr. Rehn is the most high-profile of all the 27 commissioners.
      Even the President of the Commission José Manuel Barroso has his work cut out to stay in the limelight.
     
A year ago, each of the EU members engaged in a furious lobbying campaign to parlay their own candidate into the best possible position on the starting-grid of Barroso's new Commission.
      Finland, like others, hankered after a "weighty portfolio".
      The dream ticket would have been to grab the role of the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, or the EU's foreign minister.
      Nevetheless, Rehn himself realised at an early stage in the proceedings that the foreign desk was going to go to someone else.
      Back in October of last year he noted to Helsingin Sanomat that his thoughts were focusing primarily on economic matters.
     
Barroso divided out the commissioners' seats at the end of November, and Rehn got the economics berth.
      The foreign policy plum and the position of Commission Vice-President went to Baroness Catherine Ashton of the UK some days earlier, as the left and right arranged things between themselves and left the centrists - including Rehn - out in the cold.
      At least in the immediate aftermath of the appointments, there were some glum and disappointed faces in Finland, which of course seems rather laughable from the vantage point of May 2010.
      Ashton, who ran into a massive firestorm of criticism on her appointment, seems to have vanished from the stage completely. Many are already waiting to hear of her resignation.
     
The assorted financial, economic, unemployment, Greek, and euro crises have meanwhile kept Rehn at he hub of events and public interest.
      It must certainly be a strenuous job, but then again those who were bellyacheing about getting a weighty portfolio should not complain about it.
      It was what he - and the rest of us - wanted, after all.
     
But what if I were instead to get a euro for every time I have heard someone in Brussels describe Rehn as "dry".
      The money would be rolling in.
      All the same, something has changed in that department.
      In February, dryness was a criticism.
      At the end of May, after all the billion-scale crises, suddenly being dry has acquired an altogether new and glamorous sheen.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 31.5.2010
     


Previously in HS International Edition:
  UPDATED: Rehn gets Economic & Monetary Affairs Commissioner post (27.11.2009)
  Olli Rehn focuses on economic affairs in preparation for EU Commission portfolio shuffle (20.10.2009)

See also:
  Finns reassess position after highest EU posts went to other countries (23.11.2009)

ANNAMARI SIPILÄ / Helsingin Sanomat
annamari.sipila@hs.fi