Commission’s first day spent fighting to protect members

THERE will be no honeymoon period for the new European Commission as they spent their first day in office fighting off allegations about one of their members.

The French Commissioner Jacques Barrot, convicted of embezzling state funds, had not informed his new boss about this before taking up his new post.

The new Transport Commissioner, in a letter to the European Parliament, explained he had got an automatic amnesty for the conviction that carried a suspended eight-month jail sentence.