Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-11-17-Speech-3-169"
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"en.20041117.9.3-169"2
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"Mr President, my group had delivered a basically critical judgment on the initial version of the Barroso Commission. This assessment did not relate just to the tip of the iceberg, that is to say the Buttiglione affair, but to the overall profile of this college, marked by unbounded liberalism. The holders of the competition, internal market, external trade, agriculture, environment, and a few other, portfolios were particularly targeted, as well as the holder of the justice, freedom and security portfolio. In the meantime, the President of the Commission has had to distance himself from the person who brought about the scandal so as not to run the risk of an additional and, in this case, probably definitive defeat before Parliament.
It has to be said that, setting aside this key concession, Mr Barroso has applied homeopathic treatment where the disease required a surgical operation. The patient is in danger of suffering greatly in the future as a result of this serious diagnostic error. Frankly, I fear that it is not so much a diagnostic error as a deliberate choice. One need only consider what I have had occasion to call, if you will excuse the term, the double provocation caused to a large minority of MEPs and the millions of people they represent by confirmation that the highly significant competition portfolio and the justice and freedom portfolio had been awarded to, respectively, Mrs Kroes and Mr Berlusconi’s right-hand man.
The former is known for her deep involvement in the business world, a position particularly conducive to confusion between public responsibilities and private interests. Mr Barroso is thus taking the risk of putting in place a veritable machine for producing conflicts of interest and of doing so in the Commission’s main area of competence, that in which it has discretionary power.
The latter Commissioner-designate has emerged from a select band of people who will scarcely go down in history as the most assiduous defenders of justice or as unrivalled promoters of freedoms. The date on which the Commission takes up office is even in danger of coinciding with the general strike of Italian magistrates in protest against the future justice and freedom Commissioner’s godfather, accused of corrupting magistrates and liable, it has been said, to an eight-year prison sentence.
The European Council has just decided to launch the
programme. Where the Commission is concerned, this has got off to a rather bad start. Unfortunately, what we have here are not just mistakes in casting but considered decisions. That is much worse.
Mr Barroso, your team will no doubt be confirmed in office tomorrow, but will be so without our support."@en1
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"Communicating Europe"1
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