BRUSSELS, Oct 27 (AFP) - Outgoing European Commission chief Romano Prodi was left unpacking his cases Wednesday after his successor Jose Manuel Barroso failed to persuade EU lawmakers to let his new team take office next week.
Prodi has been bracing for months to get back to the political fray in Italy after his five year term in the EU executive top job. Even as recently as Monday he had expressed confidence he would be able to leave on time.
Barroso`s Commission has been due to take office next Monday, but the European Parliament threatened to veto his team in a row centred on EU justice commissioner-designate Rocco Buttiglione of Italy.
"It is an exceptional situation. We didn`t have time to prepare ourselves," said Prodi`s Finnish chief spokesman Reijo Kemppinen, who had said his farewells to the Brussels press corps only two days ago.
"Until the announcement by the Liberals and Socialists last night we didn`t believe it," said one senior eurocrat, referring to meetings of key groups in the Strasbourg EU assembly on Tuesday evening.
Conspiracy theorists have even been heard to whisper that the standoff over Buttiglione was in fact engineered by Berlusconi to keep his political foe ensconsed in Brussels for a few more weeks.
This kind of scurrilous fantasy was greeted with wry smiles in Brussels.
10/27/2004 15:50 GMT - AFP