23/12/2002 (Agence Europe) - With its adoption on 17 December of a report by Jean Lambert (UK, Greens) on a complaint lodged with European Ombudsman Jacob Söderman concerning a case of sexual discrimination, the European Parliament commended the European Commission's decision of last April putting an end to discriminatory practices against the national experts it employs. It nevertheless took two appeals by Mr Söderman to the Commission to get it to change its rules. The complaint to the Ombudsman was lodged by Caroline Potter, a British civil servant who had applied for the post of expert at the European Commission's Transport DG, but who had to give up the job because she would not have been allowed to work part time (to look after her son, aged 11 months at the time). The rules applied to national experts at the Commission require them to work full time. Mrs Potter considered this discriminatory against women, who are more likely to have to look after their children than are male workers.