Buttiglione complains of discrimination

Italy’s anti-gay nominee to be the EU’s justice and home affairs commissioner said that he was discriminated against as a Catholic and as a member of Premier Berlusconi’ centre-right government when a European Parliament committee voted against his appointment.

Rocco Buttiglione pointed out that no one had claimed he was incompetent or badly prepared.

“But as a Catholic and a member of Berlusconi’s government, they said I could not be a European commissioner,” he said.

Buttiglione said he was blocked by a lobby “that holds that Berlusconi’s ministers are morally, politically and I would say even ethnically unworthy to work on justice.”

The European Parliament’s justice committee yesterday narrowly failed to endorse Buttiglione, who is currently Italy’s European affairs minister.

The panel’s decision, which is not binding, was a slap in the face for Berlusconi, who put Buttiglione forward. It caused a political storm in Italy, with politicians on the right coming to Buttiglione’s defence and many on the left attacking the government’s choice of candidate.

Buttiglione is the only commissioner-designate to be rejected by an EU assembly panel so far.

During a confirmation hearing last week, Buttiglione, who is close to the Vatican, faced a barrage of hostile questions over his conservative religious and moral views. He vowed to defend the rights of gays, but told the justice and home affairs committee he considered homosexuality a sin.

“I think I behaved honestly, I gave an honest hearing from a political and moral point of view. My conscience is in place,” Il Messaggero reported Buttiglione as saying.