MEP reveals Barrot conviction

29 November 2004 00:01  [Source: ICB]

The appointment of new European transport commissioner and commission vice president Jacques Barrot has been thrown into doubt after it was revealed he had an earlier embezzlement conviction.

On the day the new commission was elected, UK Independence Party (Ukip) MEP Nigel Farage asked fellow MEPs whether they would ‘buy a used car from this man’, after he disclosed that Barrot had received an eight-month suspended sentence in 2000 for diverting government funds to his own party. Barrot was subsequently granted an amnesty by then incoming French President Jacques Chirac, which makes it illegal even to mention the conviction in France.

According to Ukip press officer Mark Croucher, commission president Jose Manuel Barroso was unaware of Barrot’s conviction when he appointed him: ‘Barroso gave a press conference on Friday morning in which he said the first he knew about it was when Nigel Farage mentioned it in the European Parliament.’ He has nevertheless subsequently given Barrot his backing, saying: ‘I support all my commisssioners 100%.’

In a letter to the President of the European Parliament, Josep Borrell Fontelles, Barrot has defended his position by saying: Firstly, Mr Farage declared that I had been banned from holding public office. This is not true. There has never been any judgement in law which restricted my civil rights or which found me ineligible to hold, or banned me from holding, public office.’

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