De Palacio gets off to shaky start

Date: 02/09/1999

By Gareth Harding

The Commissioner-designate for relations with the Parliament got off to a shaky start with the body she hopes to spend much of the next five years cosying up to.

In her first appearance before MEPs, Loyola de Palacio faced a barrage of hostile questions about her role in an agricultural scandal in Spain.

Members of the Parliament's transport and energy committees accused her of turning a blind eye to abuses of EU flax subsidies while she was agriculture minister. But she strenuously denied the charges, claiming that they were politically motivated. “These were personal attacks and even at their high point, no one made the slightest suggestion that I was personally involved in those frauds, still less that I was responsible under penal law,” she said.

The Christian Democrat politician cited the conclusions of a recent report from the Spanish parliament which cleared her of any political responsibility. However, some MEPs were dissatisfied with the Spaniard's answers and accused her of being arrogant and evasive.

Socialist members succeeded in delaying a decision on whether to approve De Palacio. But after a heated debate in the committee, its chairman Greek Christian Democrat Kostas Hatzidakis noted that while “some members expressed their reservations concerning De Palacio's ability to ensure proper political control of the management of public funds the majority of members were satisfied with the answers given by the nominee”.

Well-briefed on her dossiers, De Palacio impressed MEPs with her grasp of transport and energy policy, for which she will bear overall responsibility.

In her introduction, she outlined five key transport goals on which she would like to see progress: revitalising the EU's railways; improving road safety; revising the Trans-European Networks' guidelines; reducing air traffic delays; and ensuring an integrated transport strategy. On energy policy, she said she would push ahead with market opening and expressed her belief the EU could not meet its climate change goals without nuclear energy.