In August last year the best-selling author Philip Pullman was startled to receive a letter from Gotz Drauz, a senior official of the European Commission in Brussels. The "Merger Task Force" of "competition directorate B", the letter informed him, was investigating a proposed merger between two French publishing houses.
Under the EC's "merger regulation" 4064/89, Mr Pullman was obliged to answer a five-page questionnaire. If a reply was not received by noon on August 20, less than three weeks later, he would be liable to a fine of up to 50,000 euros (
When Mr Pullman read through the 20 questions, he was even more surprised. They asked him to describe in detail why he chose one firm rather than another to publish his books. He was asked to supply details of all contracts he had signed with French publishing houses in the previous five years, including the names of all editors involved in bidding for his books.
Some questions were so clumsily translated that they were illiterate. For example: "Please explain if it happens that you derogate from the usual process. If this the case is, please indicate in which circumstances, if that often arrives (frequency), for which type of book by giving examples."
Mr Pullman replied that, first, he could not understand why he was expected to answer such questions under threat of a swingeing fine when his books were not published by either of the firms involved in the merger. Many of the details requested about his contracts were confidential.
To complete the questionnaire would be so time-consuming that, as a freelance writer, he would more appropriately be entitled to charge the Commission for time lost than be threatened with hefty fines. "This letter, however," he ended, "is free."
Mr Pullman has heard no more from Mr Drauz. Although he regards the letter as "bureaucratic impertinence", he also assures me: "I am in general strongly pro-European and I certainly don't feel any phobia about Britain's position in Europe."
Like many another Europhile, he has perhaps not seen how this kind of letter typifies the style in which the technocrats of the Commission address their subjects. For those to whom it is familiar, it is precisely this self-importance among our Platonic Guardians that we find most disturbing about the system of government by which we are now ruled.
I am grateful to Mr Pullman for allowing me to report yet another example. If, however, he was not an illustrious author but a fisherman having to obey the Common Fisheries Policy, he might well have been pursued for those 25,000 euros a day, which would now add up to just over
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