As the European Parliament plunged into a frenzy of last-minute intrigue, a senior European Commission source warned last night that support for the Commission was ebbing ahead of the no-confidence vote tomorrow.
In a dramatic switch of tactics the Socialist group, the largest in the Parliament, last night countered moves to target two Socialist commissioners by putting down its own resolution calling on the Commission's Christian Democrat President, Mr Jacques Santer, to resign if any of his commissioners were "deemed culpable of financial or administrative mismanagement". The Commission met last night but adjourned its deliberations until this evening, after the parliamentary leaders have decided on the crucial order in which resolutions will be taken tomorrow. MEPs face a mind-boggling range of options, from opposing all censure of the Commission to backing its sacking.
Determined to prevent what they see as an abuse of the system by groups which want to sanction individual commissioners, the Socialists warned that by doing so they would bring down the whole Commission. Last night they appeared to be backing off the so-called "nuclear option" by targeting Mr Santer instead.
The Commission is pinning its hopes on the possibility that the Socialist leader, Ms Pauline Green, can prevail on Mr Wilfred Martens, the leader of the second largest group, the European People's Party, to drop its naming of two commissioners, Ms Edith Cresson and Mr Manuel Marin.
But sources in the EPP say that with some 70 per cent of the party backing the naming tactic at their closed meeting yesterday, Ms Green's prospects were not good. Socialist sources also say that some 32 German Social Democrats favour censure while six are opposed - despite the intervention in the Commission's favour of Chancellor Gerhard Schroder on Monday. Individual resignations were not discussed by the Commission and a consensus appears to have emerged that the Commission will make no further concessions to Parliament beyond those announced by Mr Santer on Monday - some of which are even in doubt because of the president's failure to clear them with colleagues beforehand. Mr Santer is expected to issue a declaration this morning. But a mood is beginning to emerge among MEPs which does not regard the sacking of the whole Commission as the end of the world. Some feel a new Commission, perhaps even the same Commission but minus a few faces, could be put in place for the remaining nine months of its term relatively easily.
Sources close to the Commission report little cohesion and no co-ordinated fight back, with the 20 commissioners relying on senior officials to liase with parliamentary leaders. Despite increasing talk that resignations would ease the crisis, there seems little hope of either of the targeted commissioners offering themselves up as sacrificial lambs to appease the Parliament. Ms Cresson made clear last night she was not going to do so.
Likely to add fuel to the flames is a story in today's Le Soir paper that the wife of the Portuguese Commissioner, Mr Joao de Deus Pinheiro, is on a substantial Commission contract.
A majority of Irish MEPs are opposed to censure of the Commission and will vote against the no-confidence motion, with only the Greens strongly supporting it. The Fianna Fail group is expected to oppose the individual sanctioning of commissioners, while the Fine Gael members are likely to split on the resolution of their EPP group. Last night few were prepared to predict the outcome of a procedural chaos.
