Eurocrat may stand for Chirac in election

The future of the EU's single currency commissioner is in doubt following the surprise announcement that he may stand in French regional elections next spring. Brussels is in shock, writes Katherine Butler, at the prospect of its top monetary union official running an election campaign on the eve of next May's crucial Euro selection decisions.

Yves-Thibault de Silguy, the Frenchman who once said his job was to "make Europeans love the euro" insisted yesterday that he would have no difficulty in heading Europe's most ambitious project, the drive to forge a single currency, while at the same time supervising road-widening or worker training schemes in Brittany.

He is committed, he said to seeing out his term as European Commissioner which runs until 2000 but is also just as committed to bringing the Brussels bureaucracy closer to Europe's regions.

His view is not shared by some of his colleagues. Jacques Santer, the European Commission President, made no official pronouncement but a spokesman confirmed that Mr Santer would have to "look into it" if his top monetary official is chosen by the RPR, Jacques Chirac's party, to contest the regional elections.

For the moment, the question does not arise, the spokesman stressed. "Mr de Silguy has declared his availability. He is exercising the right of any citizen. So it still a hypothetical matter." He made it clear, however, that the move would be examined against Mr de Silguy's commitments in Brussels if it goes any further.

The EU treaties stipulate that European Commissioners must be "completely independent", and take instructions from no government "nor from any other body". They may not "during their term of office engage in any other occupation whether gainful or not".

But Mr de Silguy, a 49-year-old career civil servant is also a Breton noble, whose family motto is "Act Boldly". Perhaps further emboldened by being voted "Breton of the Year" by readers of a regional magazine in 1996, he sees no conflict in holding down the two jobs and is determined to stand his ground. Citing the precedent of Edith Cresson, the other French commissioner who until recently juggled her job in Brussels with the post of Mayor of Chatellerault, aides said yesterday that the position in Brittany is a strictly "local mandate". It would encroach only marginally on his time as the Breton Regional Council only meets four times a year. Its duties are to oversee roadworks, secondary education, and vocational training.

But some Brussels officials are privately appalled at the notion of Mr de Silguy concentrating on building a powerbase for a future in French politics at exactly the time next spring when he will be drafting the Commission's recommendations on which EU countries can go forward for the first wave of monetary union.

Early in May 1998, EU heads of government will meet to select the euro- zone countries but the Commission's assessment of who qualifies will be due some weeks prior to that. The French regional elections are scheduled for 15 March.

Associates of Mr de Silguy said he was anxious to bring the Commission, so often criticised for its remoteness from the citizen, closer to the grassroots.