This month the job of the top European Union civil servant, the Commission's secretary general, passed to a quintessential EU-man, a Dutchman, born in Italy, married to a Danish wife, who speaks English, French and German fluently, a good friend of Ireland who knows the country well, Carlo Trojan.
Or, as he was christened by an Irish diplomat, Carl O'Trojan.
Known as a tough fixer and a master of the Brussels machine, Trojan (55) has for 10 years been the number two in the Commission to the now retiring Sir David Williamson. In that time he handled some of the most delicate budget negotiations, not least of which was his success as head of a Delors task force on German unification in brokering a £2.5 billion package to ease the transition.
But not even Trojan could find Ireland's infamous "£8 billion" for Jacques Delors.
Although well known and widely respected by insiders, Trojan has shirked the limelight and only agrees to be interviewed rarely - in this case because of his enthusiasm for his Irish involvement.
"Interviews and publicity, we have commissioners for," he says with a wry grin. "They love it and they do it extremely well. Officials are there to help them do their work."
In 1989 Trojan was appointed by Delors to represent the Commission on the board of the International Fund for Ireland. He had known the country since the early 1970s when he served in various cabinets of Agriculture Commissioners, and he took the job with relish.
He is now the board's veteran and has every intention, despite his recent promotion, of continuing to play his part both in the fund and in the control of the £240 million EU Northern Ireland peace fund whose architect he was. The IFI is on an altogether different scale - the EU contribution last year was £17 million, but still larger than the US contribution.
His commitment to the IFI was driven, he says, by the enthusiasm he found in the other directors, "not officials" but drawn from a cross-section of society North and South and each with personal records of success, and he specifically cites the chairman of the fund, Mr Willy McCarter, of Fruit of the Loom.
"And the way in which the fund has worked I liked very much. A minimum of bureaucratic red tape. No infighting between departments . . ."
That informality would be part of the inspiration for the new EU peace fund created in the wake of the first ceasefire.
"Delors thought the Community and Commission had to get involved in the major window of opportunity for peace and reconciliation. He did not want to get involved in the political process as such, but wanted to signal that the issue was not a matter for Ireland alone, or between Ireland and the UK, but a matter of concern for the Community as a whole."
Delors started by topping up the EU's contribution to the IFI and then asked Trojan to prepare a complementary package of assistance more specifically focussed on promoting peace and reconciliation and based on a bottom-up approach.
He worked closely with the three Northern Ireland MEPs and was involved in extensive discussions at grassroots level. "There is hardly a voluntary association, or woman's group, you name it, who we haven't spoken to." Trojan travelled from Brussels to the Belfast peace line to the Washington investment conference.
"It was a very gratifying experience because you see that at grassroots level there's a lot of commitment in voluntary organisations to cross the divide and do things together at local level . . . small projects, but important ones for community development. Looking after the most affected by the conflict, both victims and even people who have been in prison.
"There is much more commitment on the ground than one would realise when looking at the papers. I think we seized the momentum very well."
That conviction that no one wanted a permanent return to war allowed Trojan and others to secure the fund even though the ceasefire collapsed.
The result was a "huge amount of money" and a unique experiment for the EU - funding delivered over the heads of governments directly to community organisations and partnerships operating with their own new democratic structures.
While the IFI invested in bricks and mortar - or the Shannon-Erne waterway, its flagship project - the new peace fund focused on people and how to bring them together. "That is more difficult. It is easier to co-finance projects where you are building offices. You can calculate how many extra jobs it generated, the impact on the economy. Investment in people - it is more difficult to say `well, that is the actual impact'. "
He is confident, given strong support in the European Parliament, that the Commission can find the cash to keep the programme going for an additional two years. He is an optimist on the North's economic prospects now that the ceasefire has been restored - better roads and telecommunications than the South, a highly-skilled English-speaking workforce, and higher rates of inward investment than Britain, all bode well.
Trojan looks back on Ireland's progress since the early 1970s with some awe. "If you see the differences between early 1973 and, say, five years later, and now more than 20 years later, it is incredible to see . . . You only need to look around now in Ireland, either in Dublin or in the provinces, and you see booming towns." In part it was the European Community, in part, testimony to the resilience of the Irish people, he says.
But he rejects talk of the EU turning off the tap now. "A rather peculiar way of looking at it . . . I would say look at it the other way round. Apparently the policies, the social policies and the structural policies have been rather successful as far as Ireland is concerned.
"What we are doing is not transferring monies for the sake of transferring monies, we are involved in developing policies which have the objective of closing the gaps between economic and social development between countries. Ireland is one of the countries which has done well under those policies and will continue to do well."
ON structural funding in the next budget period, he insists there will be a strict application of eligibility criteria. "But the Commission has also said it cannot be a question of changing that from one day to another. So we are proposing a phasing out period which is very long, over seven years."
Discussions of how much Ireland will lose are premature, he insists. "We have a 2 1/2-year period to discuss and negotiate. We are not yet at the stage of dividing up funds.
"Ireland is not one of the countries who has much to complain about - you have only to look at the net structural fund transfers, and you are a huge beneficiary of the Common Agricultural Policy.
"I think quite honestly that in the last 10 years we have done a great job in Ireland."
No one would have thought, after Maastricht, he says, to see such progress on inflation, the budget deficit, or the national debt.
"On top of that, Ireland is doing much better than practically all the other member-states because the employment situation has been improving. You are creating new employment while countries like France and Germany still have huge unemployment problems."
Trojan is somewhat coy about the challenges he faces in his new job reorganising the Commission. But he argues that as the new millennium approaches the organisation is unlikely to see new functions added to its brief and is thus, perhaps for the first time in 10 years, more likely to be able to reflect on its own rationalisation. What is clear, he says, is that it will have to live within its current manpower resources.
Like most in Brussels he regrets the failure of the Amsterdam summit to extend majority voting, but points to the summit's own recognition that further institutional changes will be necessary after the first wave of enlargement.