European Union leaders will meet in an emergency session in Rome on Friday to deal with an unprecedented institutional crisis that deepened this week when the incoming commission president, José Manuel Barroso, was forced to withdraw his entire team of commissioners.
During a tumultuous day, Barroso chose to backtrack when it became clear that members of the European Parliament (MEPs) would vote down his choice of commissioners, primarily because of his refusal to replace the controversial Italian, Rocco Buttiglione.
Buttiglione, an outspoken Catholic and Italy’s choice for commissioner in charge of justice, caused outrage among MEPs by professing unabashed opposition to women’s and gay rights during a hearing on his appointment this month. He called homosexuality a sin and disparaged single mothers as ”not very good mothers”.
By yielding to the political muscle of MEPs, Barroso left the outgoing commission of Romano Prodi in a caretaker capacity for at least a month. Barroso now has to put forward a new commission that can satisfy both the conflicting demands of the 25 heads of state and government and of MEPs determined to reassert what many call the genuine birth of parliamentary democracy and sovereignty in the EU.
That task appeared to be aggravated on Wednesday night when Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, refused to stand down Buttiglione. Barroso, a former centre-right Portuguese prime minister, had on Tuesday telephoned Berlusconi and Buttiglione in a vain attempt to persuade them to back down.
During his dramatic climbdown in front of a full European Parliament, Barroso said, amid prolonged bursts of applause and whoops of delight: ”I need more time to look at this issue further and to consult with you and with the European Council [of ministers] so we can have strong support for the new commission. It is better to take time to get it right.” Conceding for the first time the ”vital role” the Parliament had to play in EU governance, he offered a new shared drive to ”reinforce the democratic nature of European integration”.
He later said he would submit a new team ”within a few weeks” but insisted there was no deadline to resolve the crisis in what is widely seen as virgin territory for EU politics. ”My intention is to change what is necessary and sufficient,” he told a news conference.
Chris Davies, leader of the British Liberal Democrat MEPs, said: ”The European Parliament has long been criticised for lacking teeth. Today democracy has bitten back.”
There is now pressure from parliamentary leaders for Barroso to come up with a new commission over the weekend to be approved by a formal summit of EU political leaders in Brussels at the end of next week.
The EU is already acting illegally by failing to meet the strict November 1 deadline for the new commission to begin work and, while governments are refusing so far to give way on their original choice of commissioner, some political groups in the Parliament are demanding a comprehensive reshuffle of the Barroso team.
The 200-strong socialist group is demanding not only the complete removal of Buttiglione but new posts for, among others, Neelie Kroes, the former business executive and new competition commissioner, and Laszlo Kovacs, the Hungarian socialist and new energy commissioner.
The Dutch government deepened the deadlock by sticking to Kroes despite widespread criticism that she is hobbled by conflicts of interest and has, therefore, been forced to give up a third of her job to Barroso himself.
Graham Watson, leader of the Liberal group that delivered the killer blow to Barroso when 50 of its 88 MEPs refused to back him in secret session on Tuesday night, indicated that his group would back the commission president if Buttiglione and Kovacs quit. He called this a ”minimalist reshuffle”.
This is also the demand of the 268-strong centre-right European People’s Party, the Parliament’s biggest group, which backed Buttiglione up to the last minute, and has emerged considerably weakened at the hands of the Social Democrats, Liberals, Greens and others. — Â