MEPs reject anti-gay commission candidate

David Gow in Brussels
Tuesday October 12, 2004

The Guardian

José Manuel Barroso, the incoming European commission president, was under
strong pressure last night to dump Rocco Buttiglione, a professed opponent
of women's and gay rights, as the next commissioner for justice and
security, after the European parliament's civil liberties committee rejected
his appointment.
It is the first time MEPs have rejected a designated commissioner. Although
they can unseat only the whole commission, not a single member, their
opposition to Mr Buttiglione could at the very least force Mr Barroso to
hand key parts of the justice portfolio to a colleague.

So far Mr Barroso has resolutely backed the Italian Roman Catholic, who is a
close friend of the Pope, saying his personal moral views will not affect
his political decisions in the secular EU, and Mr Buttiglione has been
chosen as one of his vice-presidents.

But as party leaders argue about at least four other designated
commissioners, including Neelie Kroes, the competition chief with a string
of former company directorships, Mr Barroso is faced with a serious
challenge to his authority when he meets them on October 21.

Mr Barroso succeeds Romano Prodi on November 1, and MEPs have the power to
vote out his entire team when it meets six days later. That is unlikely, but
sources said Mr Barroso would be unable to ignore the clear distaste of MEPs
for one of his senior team.

The Socialist group urged him to "reflect on the deep unease" in all the
parties about some of the proposed new commissioners.

After the committee voted narrowly to reject Mr Buttiglione yesterday, the
biggest group, the conservative European People's party (EPP), joined in a
majority vote to turn him down for another portfolio and as vice-president.

Michael Cashman, the gay Labour MEP who is on the committee, said: "The game
is almost up for Buttiglione ... Most MEPs don't want this man to be put in
charge of defending human rights, civil liberties and the EU's
anti-discrimination laws."

If Mr Barroso wanted to keep him he would have to give key parts of his
portfolio - non-discrimination, fundamental rights and women's rights - to a
colleague.

Last week Mr Buttiglione told MEPs: "I may think homosexuality is a sin, but
this has no effect on politics unless I say homosexuality is a crime."

But Mr Cashman said Mr Buttiglione, a former Europe minister in Silvio
Berlusconi's Italian cabinet, had put forward an amendment to delete
non-discrimination on sexual grounds during the drawing up of the EU's
charter of fundamental rights.

"We should not judge him by what he says but what he did and does."

Lady Ludford, a Liberal Democrat MEP and justice spokesman, said Mr
Buttiglione had "failed to convince that he could be a champion of
fundamental freedoms or civil liberties, or even effective security
cooperation."

Mr Buttiglione accused opponents of political and ideological
discrimination: "Some people think that a Catholic cannot be commissioner
for justice while others think a minister in Berlusconi's government cannot
do the job."

He denied having said that he wanted a family in which the woman stayed at
home and raised children. "I said that in today's world women have too many
obligations and we have to develop policies that allow them to become
mothers and develop their professional talents."

His party, the UDC, said last night that the vote against him was an
expression of prejudice. "We reject it on two grounds, as Catholics who
respect values and as liberals who are custodians of freedom," its
secretary, Marco Follini, said.

In Rome, Mr Berlusconi accused Italian leftwingers of "coarse propaganda"
against Mr Buttiglione's beliefs, telling the conservative newspaper Il
Foglio: "On a cultural and civic level, the mere idea of putting into
question the freedom of consciousness and opinion of a commissioner with a
Roman Catholic education and faith ... has an extremist if not obscurantist
flavour."

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004