MEPs Reject Candidate Who Called Gays Sinful

José Manuel Barroso, the incoming European commission president, was under strong pressure last night to dump Rocco Buttiglione, a professed opponent of women's and gay rights, as the next commissioner for justice and security, after the European parliament's civil liberties committee rejected his appointment.

It is the first time MEPs have rejected a designated commissioner. Although they can unseat only the whole commission, not a single member, their opposition to Mr Buttiglione could at the very least force Mr Barroso to hand key parts of the justice portfolio to a colleague.

So far Mr Barroso has resolutely backed the Italian Roman Catholic, who is a close friend of the Pope, saying that his personal moral views will not affect his political decisions in the secular EU, and Mr Buttiglione has been chosen as one of his vice-presidents.

But as the leaders of the parliamentary political parties argue about at least four other new commissioners, including Neelie Kroes, the controversial competition chief with a string of former company directorships, Mr Barroso is faced with a serious challenge to his authority when he meets them on October 21.

Mr Barroso succeeds Romano Prodi on November 1, and MEPs have the power to vote out his entire team when it meets six days later. That is unlikely, but sources said Mr Barroso would be unable to ignore the clear distaste of MEPs for one of his senior team.

The Socialist group urged him to "reflect on the deep unease" in all the parties about some of the proposed new commissioners.

After the committee voted narrowly to reject Mr Buttiglione yesterday the biggest group, the conservative European People's party (EPP), joined in a majority vote to turn him down for another portfolio and as vice-president.

Michael Cashman, the gay Labour MEP who is on the committee, said: "The game is almost up for Buttiglione ... Most MEPs don't want this man to be put in charge of defending human rights, civil liberties and the EU's anti-discrimination laws."

If Mr Barroso wanted to keep him he would have to give key parts of his portfolio - non-discrimination, fundamental rights and women's rights - to a colleague.

Last week Mr Buttiglione said: "I may think that homosexuality is a sin, but this has no effect on politics unless I say that homosexuality is a crime."

But Mr Cashman said Mr Buttiglione, a former Europe minister in Silvio Berlusconi's Italian cabinet, had put forward an amendment to delete non-discrimination on sexual grounds during the drawing up of the EU's charter of fundamental rights. "We should not judge him by what he says but what he did and does."

Lady Ludford, a Liberal Democrat MEP and justice spokesman, said Mr Buttiglione had "failed to convince that he could be a champion of fundamental freedoms or civil liberties, or even effective security cooperation".

But she accused the EPP of being "bad losers" in voting to deprive him of a commission post altogether.

Last week Mr Buttiglione incurred the wrath of the parliament's president, Josep Borrell, a Spanish Socialist, who said his views were shocking.

"Perhaps if he were in charge of beetroots it would not be so serious," he told French radio.

Mr Buttiglione in turn accused his opponents of political and ideological discrimination. "Some people think that a Catholic cannot be the commissioner for justice while others think a minister in Berlusconi's government cannot do the job," he said.

He denied having said that he wanted a family in which the woman stayed at home and raised children. "I said that in today's world women have too many obligations and we have to develop policies that allow them to become mothers and develop their professional talents."

His party, the UDC, said last night that the vote against him was an expression of prejudice. "We reject it on two grounds, as Catholics who respect values and as liberals who are custodians of freedom," its secretary, Marco Follini, said.