EP-leden verwachten meer concessies van Barroso inzake kwestie-Buttiglione (en)

EUOBSERVER / STRASBOURG - MEPs are expecting incoming Commission President José Manuel Durao Barroso to make more concessions over his controversial new team ahead of a crucial vote on Wednesday.

In a speech to be given later this morning before the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Mr Barroso is expected to make further changes concerning Italian Commissioner Rocco Buttiglione - who has caused such a furore with his views on gays and women.

According to sources, Mr Barroso may offer to bring forward new general legislation on anti-discrimination and offer other concessions to MEPs who want the parliament to be taken more seriously.

Mr Barroso is also considering, say insiders, whether to say that any more statements of this nature by Mr Buttiglione - he has called homosexuality a sin - will result in the latter's resignation.

But what is remains unclear is whether such concession would be enough to swing a majority - however slim - in favour of Mr Barroso on Wednesday.

A meeting of the groups' political leaders last night saw continued division between MEPs - to the extent that they were unable to agree on a common resolution for Wednesday's vote.

While the centre-right EPP remain firmly behind the Commission President, the second largest party, the socialists, have consistently asked that Mr Buttiglione no longer be allowed to be in charge of Justice and Home Affairs.

Theoretically, the socialists, greens, liberals, leftist and eurosceptics groups could get enough votes to together to vote the new team down - but several parliament-watchers are saying that it is still too close to call.

Much depends on which way the liberals, as third biggest group, decide to jump. Even with such concessions, a large number of MEPs belonging to this group are still expected to vote no.

According to German liberal MEP Alexander Alvaro, the parliament looks as though "it may finally emancipate itself".

The balance of power

If MEPs vote down the Commission on Wednesday, it will plunge the EU into a political crisis as it will be left without an executive - just before the symbolically important signing of the Constitutional treaty on Friday (29 October).

It will also shift the nature of the balance of power between the institutions in the EU as it will be the first time that member states' right to send whoever they want to Brussels has been so directly and publicly challenged.

Speaking about the possibility of a no vote, the current Spanish Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said the consequences would be "serious not only for the European Commission but for the European Commission as a whole".

If the Commission does get voted in on Wednesday, it is expected that it will only be with a very narrow majority - getting the new Barroso Commission off to a very tough start from which it will be difficult to recover.

Moreover, for some MEPs, a positive vote would mean a missed chance for the parliament to really exercise its democratic power.

For his part, Mr Barroso said he hoped that the EU "can avoid any kind of power vacuum".