Barrot controversy nearing its end

The controversy surrounding the new European Commission, this time over French Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot, seems to be nearing its end as the European Parliament's political leaders look set to close the incident.

While Liberal MEPs yesterday kept up their call on Mr Barrot to step down over his involvement in a French party political funding scandal, the centre-left declared the affair to be primarily a legal issue. Socialists have asked the European Parliament's lawyers to examine a letter of legal explanation from Mr Barrot about the four-year-old case and why he failed to disclose it.

Socialist Group leader Martin Schultz said: "If the legal service considers that the explanations given in Mr Barrot's letter are satisfactory then, as far as the Socialist Group is concerned, the matter is over."

Mr Barrot is a member of France's ruling centre-right Union for a Popular Movement.

European Commission President José Manuel Barroso is backing Mr Barrot. In an interview, Mr Barroso said he supports all his commissioners 100 per cent but admitted that he should have been informed about the Barrot case earlier.

Mr Barrot yesterday wrote a lengthy legal explanation to the European Parliament setting out the circumstances of his 2000 conviction.

"I did not think it necessary to mention a sentence covered by an amnesty in a case which, at the time, had been widely publicised," he said in his letter to Parliament's President Josep Borell.

The case of Mr Barrot was the latest in a series of controversies over individual commissioners between Parliament and the new Barroso Commission. A row over Italian Commissioner-designate Rocco Buttiglione led the new team to take office three weeks later than planned and following various changes including the nomination of a new Italian commissioner.

The new College of Commissioners will be meeting for the first time today.