ࡱ> 463 Ebjbj 3E AAAAAUUUU a Ua.m$1RAAA AA01y]U10aA0a : the wages of sin Baron Frankal Poor old Chris Patten. One day your bags are packed and six lucrative part-time City directorships and a Dukedom await you, and the next youre back around a Brussels table discussing the 6th amendment to paragraph 4 of annex 2 of the Competition in the Markets for Telecommunications Services Directive. Again. And Italian would-be Commissioner Rocco Buttiglione is back serving drinks to the Pope. Such is the power of the European Parliament. While the talk of the town however is whether this is a farce or a breakthrough for European democracy, bigger questions seems to have been ignored, such as whether the question of church-state separation suddenly been resolved at an EU level, and are people with non-mainstream views now effectively banned from EU work ? Rocky said that single mothers are not very good, a womans place is to have children and to be protected by her husband and homosexuality is a sin. The single mothers quote Rocky claims to have been taken out of context. And, as to women marrying and homosexuality, these are pretty mainstream views that a good billion or so of the worlds Catholics (including, according to the Vatican, a majority of Europeans), would sign up to. Not to mention a fair number of other devout Christians, Muslims and Jews, just dealing with the pious. Also, Rocky made clear that these were his personal views, saying he understood homosexuality was a sin but not a crime. This seeming intolerance has echoes of the Haider affair in 2000, when, following the entry of the Austrian of rather ugly racist views to national government, Vienna was effectively boycotted by the rest of the EU. A considerable number of Austrians clearly shared Haiders views thats why they elected him. Ultimately, that election separates the two cases, as Austrian voters made their bed and had a right to lie on it. Also, power can often, as then, have a sobering effect, forcing pragmatism on even the most extreme, when writing speeches to the party faithful gives way to real-world jobs that must be done with the help of a broad variety of people. Rocky might have been similarly neutered by power. To think that however is to fundamentally misunderstand the power of the European Commission, which is based on fragile lowest-common-denominator consensus-building getting the (usually very mundane) job slowly done, or at least something like it, in some sort of way, in a reasonable timeframe. Simply from Rockys fighting talk in his Parliamentary hearing, and the subsequent compounding of his error in speaking to journalists, we know enough of his arrogance and lack of nuance to be sure that he would not have been the most effective Commissioner. Its not a matter of Catholics, or anyone else, need not apply the Maltese Commissioner is a staunch Catholic and public opponent of abortion but rather a sign that Commissioners matter more now, and national governments must think a little bit harder about who they nominate. And who would complain about having better, more competent people running the Commission ? Well, national governments to start with First published as parliamentary power in the budapest sun, 18 november 2004, HYPERLINK "http://www.budapestsun.com/cikk.php?id=13672"http://www.budapestsun.com/cikk.php?id=13672 MO\]^ > A C D  ABDE¸h hyL0J6hejheUh hyL6 h 6hD@CJmH sH h CJmH sH hyLCJmH sH  hD@5CJhDh 5CJaJmH sH h 'h 6CJaJh 'h 5CJaJ h 5CJ hyL5CJ!]^ DE $dhxa$$a$gdyL $d@xa$gd $a$gd  1 0:pD@. A!"#$%S ^ 666666666vvvvvvvvv666666>6666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666hH6666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666662 0@P`p2( 0@P`p 0@P`p 0@P`p 0@P`p 0@P`p 0@P`p8XV~_HmH nH sH tH H`H D@Normal5$7$8$9DH$_HmH sH tH DA`D Default Paragraph FontRiR 0 Table Normal4 l4a (k ( 0No List @@ D@ Balloon Text CJOJQJ6U@6 yL0 Hyperlink >*B*phPK![Content_Types].xmlj0Eжr(΢Iw},-j4 wP-t#bΙ{UTU^hd}㨫)*1P' ^W0)T9<l#$yi};~@(Hu* Dנz/0ǰ $ X3aZ,D0j~3߶b~i>3\`?/[G\!-Rk.sԻ..a濭?PK!֧6 _rels/.relsj0 }Q%v/C/}(h"O = C?hv=Ʌ%[xp{۵_Pѣ<1H0ORBdJE4b$q_6LR7`0̞O,En7Lib/SeеPK!kytheme/theme/themeManager.xml M @}w7c(EbˮCAǠҟ7՛K Y, e.|,H,lxɴIsQ}#Ր ֵ+!,^$j=GW)E+& 8PK!Ptheme/theme/theme1.xmlYOo6w toc'vuر-MniP@I}úama[إ4:lЯGRX^6؊>$ !)O^rC$y@/yH*񄴽)޵߻UDb`}"qۋJחX^)I`nEp)liV[]1M<OP6r=zgbIguSebORD۫qu gZo~ٺlAplxpT0+[}`jzAV2Fi@qv֬5\|ʜ̭NleXdsjcs7f W+Ն7`g ȘJj|h(KD- dXiJ؇(x$( :;˹! I_TS 1?E??ZBΪmU/?~xY'y5g&΋/ɋ>GMGeD3Vq%'#q$8K)fw9:ĵ x}rxwr:\TZaG*y8IjbRc|XŻǿI u3KGnD1NIBs RuK>V.EL+M2#'fi ~V vl{u8zH *:(W☕ ~JTe\O*tHGHY}KNP*ݾ˦TѼ9/#A7qZ$*c?qUnwN%Oi4 =3ڗP 1Pm \\9Mؓ2aD];Yt\[x]}Wr|]g- eW )6-rCSj id DЇAΜIqbJ#x꺃 6k#ASh&ʌt(Q%p%m&]caSl=X\P1Mh9MVdDAaVB[݈fJíP|8 քAV^f Hn- "d>znNJ ة>b&2vKyϼD:,AGm\nziÙ.uχYC6OMf3or$5NHT[XF64T,ќM0E)`#5XY`פ;%1U٥m;R>QD DcpU'&LE/pm%]8firS4d 7y\`JnίI R3U~7+׸#m qBiDi*L69mY&iHE=(K&N!V.KeLDĕ{D vEꦚdeNƟe(MN9ߜR6&3(a/DUz<{ˊYȳV)9Z[4^n5!J?Q3eBoCM m<.vpIYfZY_p[=al-Y}Nc͙ŋ4vfavl'SA8|*u{-ߟ0%M07%<ҍPK! ѐ'theme/theme/_rels/themeManager.xml.relsM 0wooӺ&݈Э5 6?$Q ,.aic21h:qm@RN;d`o7gK(M&$R(.1r'JЊT8V"AȻHu}|$b{P8g/]QAsم(#L[PK-![Content_Types].xmlPK-!֧6 +_rels/.relsPK-!kytheme/theme/themeManager.xmlPK-!Ptheme/theme/theme1.xmlPK-! ѐ' theme/theme/_rels/themeManager.xml.relsPK] E  E E  A E X\(# AA@0(  B S  ?G D G yLt-"D@ eE G @PHE @UnknownG*Ax Times New Roman5Symbol3. *Cx Arial5. *[`)TahomaA BCambria Math"1hmmƂfJ J xx0? ? 2HX  $Pt2!xx dear dariafrankalB&BOh+'0D    $,4< dear dariafrankalNormalB&B2Microsoft Office Word@@*@xuy]@xuy]J ՜.+,D՜.+,d  hp  European Central Bank?   dear daria Title dear daria@nv _PID_HLINKS_AdHocReviewCycleID _AuthorEmail_AuthorEmailDisplayName_ReviewingToolsShownOnceA-http://www.budapestsun.com/cikk.php?id=13672:iBaron.Frankal@ecb.intFrankal, Baron  !"$%&'()*,-./0125Root Entry F ]y]7Data 1TableWordDocument3SummaryInformation(#DocumentSummaryInformation8+CompObjy  F'Microsoft Office Word 97-2003 Document MSWordDocWord.Document.89q