EU chief Barroso shrugs off censure motion

Only 35 MEPs have backed a motion of censure against José Manuel Barroso and the European Commission.

The European Commission president has easily survived the challenge over the ethics of his free summer holiday last year.

Two thirds of the European Parliament’s 732 MEPs were required to make the motion stick but less than five per cent answered a call led by UK eurosceptics.

The motion – which initially won the support of 77 MEPs – secured 35 votes, 589 against, and 35 abstentions.

Barroso was accused of misconduct after accepting a €20,000 holiday on board the yacht of a friend, also a Greek shipping billionaire.

The row is to lead to a rethink of EU rules on ethics but most MEPs accepted that Barroso had done nothing untoward.

But following the row the commission president dropped all responsibility for decisions affecting individual companies in the shipping industry.

The only casualty of the Barroso challenge has been the British Conservative MEP Roger Helmer.

Helmer has been expelled from the centre-right EPP/ED – parliament’s largest political bloc to which the UK Conservatives are affiliated.

The UK MEP was kicked out for publicly attacking EPP and Conservative leaders for pressuring him over his support for the censure motion.

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