Jose Manuel Barroso’s incoming European Commission faced mounting trouble on the eve of taking office when a European Parliament leader demanded on Sunday that one of its members step aside over an undisclosed conviction. Graham Watson, chief of the 87-member strong Liberal group in the EU legislature, said French Commissioner Jacques Barrot should quit or be suspended until questions over an amnestied conviction for embezzlement were resolved.

“To avoid serious damage to the standing of the new Commission, I call on Mr Barrot to resign, or at the very least to ask to be relieved of his duties until this matter can be discussed and resolved between the Parliament, the Commission and the Council (of ministers),” Watson said in a statement. A spokesman for the Commission declined to comment. Any hope of a political honeymoon for Barroso’s 25-member executive was dashed by a three-week political standoff with Parliament, which forced changes in his line-up and now by growing embarrassment over Barrot, the Commission vice-president responsible for transport policy.

The first dispute ended only after Barroso dropped Italian candidate Rocco Buttiglione over his conservative views on gays and marriage, as well as Latvian eurosceptic Ingrida Udre. It was Watson’s centrists who joined left-wing lawmakers to force Barroso to withdraw his initial team, so the Liberal leader’s demand for Barrot to go was ominous. On Friday, the 200 Socialists and the Liberals demanded that Barroso explain why Barrot did not disclose his 2000 suspended prison sentence for party funding offences either to the Commission president or to parliament before his confirmation.

Eurosceptical British EU lawmaker Nigel Farage made public the 67-year-old conservative politician’s conviction in parliament on Thursday just before the assembly overwhelmingly voted confidence in Barroso’s team. Under French law a sentence erased by an amnesty cannot be referred to in public and does not create a criminal record. Contrary to what Farage alleged in parliament, Barrot was never barred from holding public office.

He was one of many politicians from all major parties who got into trouble for illicit funding dating back to a period before 1991 when France had no campaign finance law. However, in the current puritanical mood about perceived sleaze in Brussels, Barrot’s failure to disclose the case could have serious political consequences. It could also cause embarrassment for French President Jacques Chirac, protected from judicial investigations into party funding scandals by his presidential immunity. Chirac appointed Barrot, a member of his Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party. Watson said Barrot was “seriously compromised by the revelation of his conviction and suspended jail sentence for conduct that is illegal in many EU member States”.

<B>Paul Taylor</B>