Election role ‘incompatible’ with a president’s duties, admits Prodi

By David Cronin

Date: 29/04/04

ROMANO Prodi has acknowledged that taking an active role in an election campaign would involve an "incompatibility" with his work as European Commission president, following months of across-the board criticism of his involvement in Italian politics.

However, the "spiritual leader" of the centre-left Margarita political alliance in Italy qualified his remarks by saying this conflict of interests would arise only in a case where a commissioner is actually standing as a candidate.

Prodi came under fire from opponents last week when he told a meeting of left-leaning politicians in Rome that he backed the new Spanish government's undertaking to withdraw the country's troops for Iraq. With this move, he said, Madrid had returned to "our position".

Although the "position" he referred to was widely perceived as being that of parties opposed to the US-led occupation of Iraq, Commission spokesman Gerassimos Thomas said Prodi was speaking in his capacity as head of the EU executive as he does not currently hold any other post.

In a newly-released response to a Parliamentary question, Prodi has told Philip Claeys, an MEP with Flemish far-right party Vlaams Blok, that he always believed there would be a clash between having a commissioner exercising his or her mandate and contesting a national or European election. "This implies that for the duration of the campaign, the member of the Commission must abstain from taking part in its work," he said.

Such a step was taken by Anna Diamontopoulou, the former employment and social affairs commissioner, who stepped down earlier this year to run for Greek Socialists PASOK in the country's election.

But Hans-Gert Pöttering, leader of the biggest political group in the European Parliament, the European People's Party (EPP-ED), drew a distinction between Prodi's activities and Diamontopoulou's as the latter was a formal candidate.

Nevertheless, he called on Prodi to "concentrate" on his work in the Commission until his term expires in October and cease campaigning on behalf of parties in Italy.

"He should abstain from party politics," Pöttering told European Voice. "He is regarded as the spiritual leader of the centre-left in Italy. And his activities are not agreeable with his work as president of the Commission.

"I know Mr Prodi sees it otherwise. But as president of the Commission, he has to be the president of everybody. He should not be as one-sided as he is at the moment in Italian politics."

Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia is affiliated to the EPP-ED. Pundits in Italy regard Prodi as the politician who would be best-placed to spoil Berlusconi's attempts to be re-elected in a national poll due next year.

Report of comments from European Commission President Prodi responding to criticisms that he was taking a too active role in Italian national politics, which he is likely to return to later in 2004.