Strasbourg, 23/07/2004 (Agence Europe) - In Strasbourg on Friday morning, the European Parliament's Women's Rights Committee was unable to elect its bureau officials, following a challenge to the selection of the Slovak Christian Democrat Movement MEP Anna Zaborska (EPP-ED). The agreement reached between the different political parties was challenged by German Social Democrat Lissy Groner, and the committee agreed with her (by 20 votes to 14) that the vote on the bureau should be postponed until the committee met again on 26 July. Groner criticised Zaborska (who was an observer during the preceding term of office of the European Parliament) of holding very conservative views and making harsh criticisms of the work of the Women's Rights Committee in the Slovak media.
Half an hour later, as the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee was preparing to elect French Socialist Pervenche Beres as President, Finnish MEP Piia-Noora Kauppi called on behalf of the EPP-ED for the vote to be postponed because the agreement on the new chair of the Women's Rights Committee had 'unfortunately broken down'. After a brief, stormy, meeting, chaired by veteran MEP Astrid Lulling (Luxembourg Christian Democrat), the committee decided by 24 to 14 and 5 abstentions to postpone the vote until Wednesday. Luxembourg Socialist Robert Goebbels slammed this as childish, but other MEPs were prepared to postpone the vote until 30 August. German Christian Democrat Christoph Konrad, British Conservative John Purvis and FDP MEP Wolf Klinz argued against this, calling for the meeting to be held next week to establish a work programme and pressurise the Women's Rights Committee to sort out its problems. This was the line which won out in the end.