STRASBOURG (AFP) - The European Union braced for a knife-edge vote to decide the fate of its new executive arm with incoming EU chief Jose Manuel Barroso hardening his stance against rebel legislators.
Barroso rejected the demands of many members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to reshuffle his proposed team to demote his fiercely controversial choice for justice commissioner, Rocco Buttiglione.
But with the Socialists and others adamant that they will veto the new European Commission unless Buttiglione is given another job, there were fears that the EU could be set for an unprecedented institutional crisis.
In the worst-case scenario, outgoing commission chief Romano Prodi says he will stay on beyond November 1 as a caretaker until the crisis is resolved. But EU treaties do not spell out how the bloc should proceed in that event.
With EU leaders preparing to convene in Rome on Friday to sign the bloc`s hard-fought constitution, Barroso appealed to MEPs to show "responsibility" and back him in Wednesday`s vote in Strasbourg.
"I cannot surrender to a culture of intolerance," he told the parliament during an occasionally bad-tempered debate.
"A reshuffle would create more institutional and political problems than it would resolve," Barroso said.
He angered the Socialists by saying it was strange that in rejecting his new team, they would vote alongside the eurosceptic "extremists who do not want our European project".
"This commission team is worthy of your trust. I appeal above all to your European identity... and ask you to give the commission your confidence," Barroso added.
Buttiglione, a conservative Catholic with close ties to the Vatican, has infuriated left-wingers by saying that homosexuality is a "sin" and that women should stay at home to bear children.
That makes him unfit to serve in his new job of guardian of EU civil liberties, critical MEPs say.
Socialists leader Martin Schulz rejected an offer reaffirmed by Barroso in Strasbourg to reassign some of Buttiglione`s more sensitive responsibilities, such as anti-discrimination policy, to a four-member team of commissioners.
"He`s just putting old wine in new bottles," Schulz told a news conference.
The parliamentary arithmetic is too close to call. Only the conservative European People`s Party, which holds 268 seats in the 732-member assembly, and another centre-right group back the Barroso commission.
A normally reliable Socialist source said the "no" camp had 380 votes in the bag, enough to nix Barroso`s team. But few were willing to bet on the outcome of what will be a dramatic roll call of MEPs.
The outcome could depend on the centrist Liberals, whose 88 members were due to hold talks with Barroso later Tuesday but are split on the matter.
Watson told reporters that he would recommend that his group "give the commission the benefit of the doubt".
"But I do not believe that my group will follow that line," he admitted.
As the day wore on, rumours began circulating later Tuesday that Barroso could yet try to get Wednesday`s vote delayed, to give him more time to persuade Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to drop Buttiglione when the two meet in Rome on Friday.
"Barroso has spoken to 23 of the 25 leaders last week. He got the reply that there was no willingness to make any swaps, and no reshuffles, which would be seen as a real killing of Buttiglione," said euroskeptic MEP Jens Peter Bonde.
"Now it`s clear. He needs something else. That`s the reason the rumours now talk about contacts between Barroso and Berlusconi," he added.

10/26/2004 - 18:01 GMT - AFP