BRUSSELS (AFP) - The incoming head of the European Commission was left scrambling for votes ahead of a crunch vote next week, when EU lawmakers are threatening to veto his new team even before it takes office.
Key EU governments are also expected to weigh in to help Jose Manuel Barroso, whose bid to appease critics in the European Parliament failed Thursday, leaving the European Union facing a looming crisis.
And amid mounting concerns over what could be a knife-edge decision, officials acknowledged that current Commission chief Romano Prodi would be ready to stay on beyond the end of his mandate if necessary.
"I'm sure that with his sense of duty to the Commission and European politics, President Prodi and his colleagues in the commission would shoulder their responsibility," spokesman Gerassimos Thomas said.
A frantic round of arm-twisting and horse-trading is in view, with both national capitals and Barroso's supporters seeking to persuade undecided MEPs in the 732-seat EU assembly to swing behind him ahead of next Wednesday's vote.
The problem centres on Italian EU justice commissioner-designate Rocco Buttiglione, who sparked a storm by branding homosexuality a "sin" and saying a women's role was to produce children and be protected by her husband.
The cigar-chomping conservative Catholic, said to be close to the Vatican, sought to appease his critics in an open letter to Barroso expressing regret for any offence he had caused.
Barroso also offered a compromise by pledging to set up a grouping of commissioners in his new team to oversee anti-discrimination and fundamental rights, effectively taking the sensitive issues out of Buttiglione's hands.
But it was clearly not enough for many. The head of the Socialists, the second biggest grouping in the EU assembly, openly urged a "no" vote, while the third-biggest Liberals also called for Buttiglione to be kicked out.
Only the biggest party, the conservative European People's Party, is backing Barroso's new team in the Strasbourg vote, at which MEPs will be asked to approve or reject the entire new Commission -- they are not allowed to veto individual commissioners.
The parliamentary arithmetic is impossible to call. The conservatives have 294 seats, against 232 Socialists and 66 Liberals. But there are various other groupings and in any case many MEPs will not necessarily toe their party line.
"It is going to be a very tight race indeed I think," said John Palmer of the European Policy Centre, adding that next week's vote "will critically depend on the outcome of the swing votes in the liberal group."
He added that national governments could also play a key role, by putting pressure on their MEPs to back Barroso, an economic liberal who was a compromise candidate for the top Brussels job and was supported notably by Britain
Some commentators are warning of an all-out crisis if Barroso's team is rejected.
"To vote against the commission ... would virtually guaranteee that ... efforts by the EU to gain greater weight on the international stage -- will be compromised. Perhaps forever," said the Portuguese daily Publico.
Britain's biggest-selling broadsheet Daily Telegraph warned that if MEPs defy Barroso and block his commission, it would "take the European Union into the uncharted waters of fully fledged constitutional crisis."
A spokeswoman for Barroso meanwhile reiterated that the former Portuguese prime minister remains optimistic he will win approval.
She admitted that a "no" vote would produce "a whole new scenario," but underlined that Barroso "does not want to speculate on such a possibility. He is confident that he will have a majority vote for his commission."
10/22/2004 - 14:08 GMT - AFP