Socialists reject 'cosmetic' Barroso offer

European Parliament’s Socialists have rejected “insufficient” and “cosmetic” assurances from José Manuel Barroso amid a row over new EU justice chief Rocco Buttiglione.

Socialist leader Martin Schulz told journalists that he had no confidence in Barroso and vowed to vote against the incoming European Commission as a whole next Wednesday in Strasbourg.

“The socialist group can’t vote in favour of this commission.  We do not have confidence in it,” said Schulz after a meeting between Barroso and parliament’s group leaders on Thursday.

And commenting on the Portuguese commission chief’s proposal to set up and chair a high-powered working group to cover human rights, as a solution to the Buttiglione crisis, Schulz angrily dismissed the proposal.

“It’s cosmetic and I don’t think he has helped himself with this proposal,” said the socialist leader.

And Schulz came close to accusing the commission chief of going back on promises made at a meeting between the pair on Tuesday.

“I expected more on Tuesday than was tabled today.  My minimum expectation was that Buttiglione’s portfolio would be changed,” Schulz said.

“My impression was that Barroso might even take over Buttiglione’s responsibilities.”

“He [Barroso] has said thank you very much for all that hard work, but I’m going to go straight ahead with this commission unchanged.”

And the German said he could not understand how Barroso expects parliament to accept his commission without some changes.

“To have hearings , to make harsh remarks about candidates, to have a committee reject a candidate and then at the end of the day, say thanks a lot, but I’m not going to change anything, you can’t expect the parliament to say bravo to that," he said.

“It’s going to be difficult to get a broad majority behind such a commission, given such statements by the president designate.”

And Schulz was dismissive of an undated and misspelled letter offered as an apology by Rocco Buttiglione.

“My impression is that it was written before last weekend.  Just how credible is this letter?," he said. 

He said that he had the fullest respect for Buttiglione.

"We worked together in the civil liberties committee.  He is a good man but I cannot imagine that he could cooperate in a constructive way with the committee here in parliament that rejected him during the hearings."

The German MEP dismissed suggestions that he was carrying out a vendetta against Buttiglione because of animosity he might have with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi who infamously likened Schulz to a Nazi concentration camp guard.

“This is the first I’ve heard of this,” he said.

• Previous article
• Next article