Brussels, 26/04/2005 (Agence Europe) -Nigel Farage (UK Independence Party), eurosceptic British MEP and member of the Independence/Democracy group of the European Parliament, is to ask the Conference of the Presidents of the political groups of the EP, on 4 May, to summon the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, to explain to the plenary in Strasbourg from 9 to 12 May about the “hospitality” he and his family received from Greek businessman Mr Latsis when they spent a week's holiday on his yacht. Mr Farage said that he was confident that the necessary majority within the Conference of Presidents could be attained, “because the leaders of several groups [he referred in particular to Martin Schulz of the PES and Graham Watson of ALDE) as well as hundred of MEPs are up in arms”. “It seems obvious to me that we have a clear majority within the EP to call for Mr Barroso to come and explain himself to us”, Mr Farage told the press. Should Mr Barroso's answers to the plenary prove unsatisfactory, “I will try to obtain a motion of censure against the Barroso Commission”, Mr Farage declared on Tuesday. It is worth noting that a Commission spokesperson justified Mr Barroso's acceptance of the invitation by the fact that Mr Latsis is “an old university friend” of Mr Barroso and that there was “no conflict of interests” in this “purely private” affair (EUROPE 8930), and also said last week that Mr Barroso was quite prepared to come and explain the matter to the Parliament if it was felt to be useful or necessary. In the view of Mr Farage, the behaviour of the President of the Commission is unacceptable. “If Mr Barroso says that receiving this kind of invitation is a normal fact of private life, and if we are aware that the holiday he is referring to is said to have been worth 20,000 EUR, I think we have every right to ask Mr Barroso if he lives on the same planet as us”, he exclaimed. The British MEPs also asked how Mr Barroso and the Commission could still make objective decisions on matters of competition in the field of maritime transport, with Mr Barroso having accepted invitations from the “biggest shipping family in the world”. Furthermore, “a mass of maritime legislation” has been dealt with in recent months by the various Community institutions. “All I can say is that the potential for abuse must be clear to everybody”.
Mr Farage also called Commissioner Peter Mandelson (Trade) into question, for having spent his holidays as a guest of “the seventh richest man on the planet”, none other than Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, “just as the controversial patents software directive is being discussed by the Community institutions”. Here again, Mr Farage said, “the potential for abuse must be clear to everybody”.
Last February, Mr Farage addressed a question to all 25 Commissioners, asking them to declare all invitations they had accepted since taking up their posts, “especially in the form of free holidays”. “I got no response, because the Commission took a conscious decision not to answer this question”. The Commission is not just a group of high-ranking civil servants, “they are the government of Europe, the twenty-five most powerful people on the European continent”, said Mr Farage. Declining to answer an official question from a member of the European Parliament is a gesture of contempt for the elected part of the EU, he said. “Or did they choose not to reply because there was something to hide?”