Barroso blinks in the Commission vs Parliament battle

6.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 27th Oct 2004

José Manuel Barroso, the incoming European Commission President today withdrew his proposed Commission team. He was heading for certain defeat over his choice of Rocco Buttiglione as the Commissioner for Civil Liberties. Buttiglione has expressed some very illiberal views on gender and sexuality and would be entirely unacceptable.

The European Parliament can only accept or reject the whole Commission, so if they wanted to reject Buttiglione then they had to reject the whole commission. Barroso has obviously done and maths and realised he was on to a loser.

The rules obviously should be changed to allow the Parliament to reject individual Commissioners rather than the all or nothing options. Whilst the rules are as they are the Parliament has no real choice but to reject the whole Commission as currently stands.