Strasbourg, 04/05/2004 (Agence Europe) - As predicted, the censure motion presented by 63 MEPs against the Prodi Commission, on the matter of the way the Eurostat affair was managed, was rejected, on 4 May in Strasbourg, by 88 votes in favour and 515 against, with 63 abstentions.
In the "whereas" of the motion, signatories above all note that the European Commission has not designated anyone responsible for the Eurostat affair and that it is not satisfactory that the extremely serious criticism about the behaviour of the Commission and of Commissioner Solbes in the Eurostat affair, as set out by the Parliament in its resolution of 29 January 2004, had only received in response press declarations by Commissioner Solbes stating that he had always acted in an appropriate manner. The signatories say that, given the lack of confidence that it has suffered, the Commission must assume collective responsibility for its failure to act further to a number of requests considered crucial by the Parliament in a series of resolutions. They reproach the European Commission with having failed to fulfil its own commitments with a view to "zero tolerance" and the "best administration in the world".
Those signing the motion, headed by Jens-Peter Bonde, President of the Group of a Europe of Democracies and Diversities, are mainly members of the Union for a Europe of Nations and European United Left/Nordic Greens Left groups, but also some members of the Greens/European Radical Alliance group and the EPP-ED Group (mainly British Conservatives), Italian Radicals and non-attached.
All members of the EDD group voted for the censure except Véronique Mathieu, as did 17 members of GUE/NGL (especially Greek, French, Dutch, Finnish and Swedish members), 11 members of UEN (including 6 from the new Member States: the Poles Bielan, Kaminski, Libicki and Szczyglo, the Estonian Reiljan and the Slovakian Ziak), 11 members of EPP-ED (the British Callanan, Goodwill, Hannan, Heaton-Harris, Helmer, Nicholson, Villiers, the Irish Scallon, the Germans Schleicher and Stauner, and the Swede Sacredeus), the Belgian Socialist Jean-Maurice Dehousse, 7 members of the Greens/EFA group, and independents.