Barroso erupts in fury at Higgins’ criticism of Brussels

EUROPEAN Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso erupted in fury, as Socialist MEP Joe Higgins accused Brussels of destroying Irish services and living standards.

Mr Higgins described an EU emergency support fund — used to help bail out the Government to the tune of €85 billion — as “nothing more than another tool to cushion major European banks from the consequences of their reckless speculation on the financial markets”.

Mr Higgins, speaking in a debate in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, went on: “It is a mechanism to make working class people throughout Europe pay for the crisis of a broken financial system and a crisis-ridden European capitalism.”