Mouse Négociation
A few
months ago, Mouse, the world largest entertainment conglomerate and the French
government signed a Master Agreement to create the EuroMouse development in
Marne La Vallée. The agreement was controversial and had a very bad impact on
the communities surrounding by the project. In this negotiation, the four
mayors of Chessy, Bailly, Coupvray and Magny were discussing with 2
representatives of the government and 2 representatives of the company Mouse to
find an agreement on the damage they are suffering from the construction.
During this negotiation, I was the mayor of Bailly and my main concerns were
find a solution for the administrative nightmare created by the construction,
the bad impact on the life conditions of my residents and reach an amount for a
financial compensation in the form of annual payment. In alliance with the 3
other mayors we also had concerns about the overwhelming volume of permit
requests, the need of a community planner to deal effectively with the enormous
changes resulting from the EuroMouse project. Before the negotiation, with the
3 other mayors we agree on the amount on the annual payment we want: 3 million.
I was really
disappointed of this negotiation because we spend too much time on small issues,
we had too much difficulties to make the negotiation go further because none of
us was able to take initiatives and my partners were not synchronized. There
was a lack of preparation and organization. My counter partners were not that
implicated and concentrated during the debate and it was very difficult to find
an agreement. To rectify that, we took various breaks to recalculate our
positions and what we really want from the government and the company.
Sometimes, the other mayors didn’t let me speak and we talk all together at the
same time. I was feeling a little bit bad at the end of the negotiation because
we had to redefine objectives which were very clear at the beginning and we
always had to redirect the debate on the main issues. For me, the main point
was the financial compensation and we spent too much time on less interesting
point like the values of Mouse. To improve our negotiation, I thought that a
speaker for all the group who manage the discussion was necessary. I try to
lead the discussion but it was quite hard to be listened. Personally, I saw
this debate as a messy negotiation without very constructive arguments and no
real plan to follow.
However, at
the end we managed to find an agreement in the framework of a win-win
negotiation.
These were the
various issues we agreed on:
- Agree to hire a community planer
employed by the government and extra administrative assistants for each
community.
- Help of a French consultant from
EuroMouse to manage the construction of the project
- The government will build stronger
roads
- Make a press release with good
publicity for the project with a financial compensation
- Annual payment during the
construction of $2 million and after a 2% annual payment
- The mayors will stop the blocs of
the farmers of their communities to let the construction continue.
