Barroso Stands By Anti-gay Eu Nominee

José Manuel Barroso, the new European commission president, has strongly defended Rocco Buttiglione, his choice as the justice and home affairs commissioner and a professed opponent of gay rights, saying he had full confidence in him.

In London yesterday for talks with Tony Blair, Mr Barroso in effect ignored the narrow vote in the European parliament's civil liberties committee on Monday against Mr Buttiglione's appointment, saying he was a "very able" minister who could make an important contribution.

Mr Barroso rejected moves to strip Mr Buttiglione of his civil liberties duties and hand them to another colleague.

As centre-right MEPs rallied to the Italian Catholic on the eve of a meeting of political group leaders in the parliament to discuss Mr Barroso's team, there were clear signs that the right would exchange support for Mr Buttiglione for that of the Hungarian socialist Laszlo Kovacs, who has been described by another commitee as "unfit" and "incompetent" to be the new energy commissioner.

This would enable Mr Barroso, who voiced support for Mr Kovacs, to see off a prospective challenge to his authority when he meets the group leaders next week, days before the parliament votes on the commission as a whole.

MEPs can only reject the commission in its entirety, not individual members.

In Rome, bolstered by the support of the prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, Mr Buttiglione accused his detractors of discriminating against him as a Catholic and claimed that he was blocked by a lobby "that holds that Berlusconi's ministers are morally, politically and I would say even ethically unworthy to work on justice".

He told the Italian newspaper Il Messagero: "I will not prostitute my conscience ... I'm not going to sell [my ideas] short for a post as a commissioner." He added: "I never said women should be locked up at home to have children."

Mr Berlusconi said the committee's vote smacked of fundamentalism, and Mirko Tremaglia, his minister for Italians abroad, was quoted by Reuters as saying: "Unfortunately, Buttiglione has lost. Poor Europe: the queers are in the majority."

Mr Buttiglione told MEPs last week, at his confirmation hearings, that homosexuality was a sin and gays should not be given special rights.

Mr Barroso said one had to distinguish between a person's beliefs and the policies he would enact.

"My commission is very liberal on that matter [sexual orientation]. We believe in and respect different sexual orientations. There will be no discrimination with regard to that point," he said yesterday.

The row is an acute embarrassment to the president of an avowedly secular commission as it heads for accession talks with largely Muslim Turkey, if EU leaders, sharply divided on the issue, agree at their December 17 summit.

Mr Buttiglione, the first commissioner-designate to be rejected by a European parliament committee, was said by Mr Barroso's spokeswoman to stand by the EU's new charter of fundamental rights.

But his opponents, including the gay Labour MEP Michael Cashman, say that he opposed non-discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation when the charter was being drawn up.

The biggest political group in the parliament, the centre-right European People's party/European Democrats, which embraces the UK Conservatives, gave "total and utter" support to Mr Buttiglione, saying he had "all the integrity to do the job".

"I think he will survive," an EPP spokesman said, saying that the parliament had boxed itself into a corner by voting at committee level to deprive Mr Buttiglione of any portfolio and separately declaring Mr Kovacs to be unfit for office.