Quotes of the Day

Silvio Berlusconi lobbied long and hard for this hour of glory. It was in Rome in 1957, after all, that six European leaders signed the founding treaty of the European Economic Community — the forerunner of today's European Union — so the Italian Prime Minister wanted the leaders of the 25 member states to return to the Eternal City to sign the European Constitution. On Friday they came, and Berlusconi made the most of it. With famed filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli directing the live television coverage, Berlusconi led his European colleagues through a carefully choreographed ceremony at Rome's historic Campidoglio city hall. There were long, statesmanlike gazes from the balcony overlooking the ancient forum and a signing ceremony in the same Orazi and Curiazi hall where the 1957 treaty was inked. "The process of European integration ... has proved to be the most fruitful and enduring vision of the postwar period," Berlusconi intoned. "Never in history have we seen an example of nations voluntarily deciding to exercise their sovereign powers jointly in the exclusive interest of their peoples, thus overcoming age-old impulses of rivalry and distrust."

Perhaps one day this event will rank in importance alongside the 1957 ceremony. But last week, Rome seemed like a strange place to sign a treaty clarifying relations among E.U. institutions (it has yet to be ratified by any member state and faces long odds in some), because those relations have been upended thanks to Berlusconi's nomination of conservative Catholic Rocco Buttiglione as Italy's member of the European Commission, the E.U.'s executive body. Commission President–designate José Manuel Durão Barroso had tapped Buttiglione for the Justice, Freedom and Security post, which includes responsibility for antidiscrimination and sexual equality measures as well as immigration. But Buttiglione enraged members of the European Parliament, who have the power to reject the Commission as a whole, when he referred to homosexuality as a sin and remarked that marriage was meant to provide women with "the right to have children and the protection of a man." A center-left majority in Parliament threatened to reject the Commission unless Buttiglione was sacked or reassigned. Barroso declined. But last week, it became clear that Parliament wouldn't roll over for him. Just hours before the vote that would sack the entire Commission, Barroso withdrew his team — "the outcome will not be positive for European institutions," he said drily — and promised a new proposal within a month. On Saturday, once it was clear that Berlusconi couldn't save him, Buttiglione threw in the towel, saying he was "an innocent victim ... of a crude and superficial campaign in the press." His resignation was the inevitable coda to the month's main theme: a newly assertive and triumphant European Parliament.

"Our will was tested and our will has prevailed," crowed Graham Watson, leader of the Parliament's Liberal group. Often scorned as a dumping ground for politicians either too green or too damaged for the national arena, the Parliament took a huge step toward shaking its image as a spineless body that salutes the Commission's every move. And M.E.P.s were tipsy with their newfound power. At Les Aviateurs bar, a popular watering hole in Strasbourg, young M.E.P.s partied until dawn to celebrate their victory. "There isn't a parliament in the history of democracy that didn't have to fight fiercely for its powers," Edith Mastenbroek, 29, a first-term Dutch Socialist, told Time. "That we did it over an issue of human rights — that's just beautiful." Parliament's assertion of power is a boon for integrationists, who would like to see a greater role for the E.U.'s only directly elected body, but was hardly welcomed by those who want to keep power in national capitals. "It's wrong that the Parliament should put itself in a position of being more important than the member states," says Jonathan Evans, head of the Euro-skeptic British Conservative M.E.P.s. Evans volunteered that it had been "tempting" to oppose the Commission for the sheer partisan joy of voting against British nominee Peter Mandelson, one of the architects of New Labour's victories, who is slated to become the Commissioner for Trade. Yet on this issue at least, Evans and Mandelson found themselves on the same side. At a dinner of senior Socialist group politicians on Tuesday evening, Mandelson called the group's intention to vote down the Commission "destructive, infantile, emotional and tribal," according to one attendee.

Mandelson's call was ignored, as were the many other entreaties from member states, including Spain and Germany. Those Socialist-led governments, while never enamored of Barroso, would have much preferred to dodge a bothersome train wreck over the new Commission. But Buttiglione's comments about gays and women, and the fact that he had been nominated by Berlusconi, amounted to a cause that Greens, Socialists and a majority of Liberals were willing to go to the mat for. "This week was the birth of a truly European Socialist faction," said Martin Schulz, the German leader of the Socialist group. (Berlusconi may now regret having compared Schulz to a Nazi pow camp guard last year.) "Despite pressure from national governments," he added, "all our Socialists were thinking like Europeans."

Schulz is now promising that the Parliament's successful pressure on Barroso scotches the chance of a unfettered "neoliberal agenda" from the new Commission, despite its pro-market complexion. "We've shown that there's no getting around the Socialists, and Barroso should take notice," he says. "We'll see it when it comes to legislating on competitiveness, on environmental protection, on public-service rules and the whole question of social protection for workers." Yet the Socialists might find it far more difficult to stay united on bread-and-butter economic issues than on civil rights for homosexuals. The governing Social Democrats in Berlin, for example, are currently pushing through reforms that look a lot like the ones the opposition French Socialists are fighting tooth and nail in Paris. "Political groups will increasingly act as real European parties," says Annabelle Littoz-Monnet, a researcher at Belgium's Royal Institute for International Relations. "But let's not be too naive. National interests will still outweigh political color on essential issues." Indeed, in a new Time/cnn poll, 70% of those surveyed in Britain, France and Germany said that the incoming Commissioners are more likely to work in the interests of their home countries than in the interests of the E.U. as a whole.

Still, last week recalibrated the balance between Parliament and member states. For years national leaders have used Brussels appointments to solve domestic political problems. Buttiglione's appointment emerged after his party, the Union of Christian Democrats, threatened to leave Berlusconi's ruling coalition. In years past, such nominations have always received a weary pass from Parliament. This time — perhaps because more than half the M.E.P.s were first elected in June — they didn't. Greek Socialist Stavros Lambrinidis, vice chairman of the Civil Liberties Committee, says that its vote against Buttiglione created a healthy dynamic. "All the committees started focusing on the quality of the other Commissioners," he says.

While most nominees are distinguished and qualified, as many as six have drawn criticism. Now that Buttiglione is gone, national leaders will have to decide how much more recasting the Commission needs. Berlusconi, who is said to favor Foreign Minister Franco Frattini for Italy's slot, doesn't want Buttiglione to be the only casualty. Other possible candidates for replacement include the proposed Energy Commissioner, Hungarian Foreign Minister Lászlo Kovács, whose "professional competence" and "aptitude" were found inadequate by the relevant committee; the proposed Commissioner for Competition, Neelie Kroes of the Netherlands, whose extensive (and, until recently, not fully disclosed) business ties have come under fire; the Danish nominee for Agriculture Commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel, who was called "lacking in resoluteness" by the relevant committee; and Latvian Taxation Commissioner-designate Ingrida Udre, who Schulz said "doesn't belong in the Commission" because of an ongoing corruption probe into her party, the Union of Greens and Farmers. (Her candidacy was made even shakier on Thursday by the resignation of Latvia's government.) In Rome, E.U. heads of state began talking about how to put together a new, improved Commission — which means doing some serious horsetrading if they really intend to wrap it up at their summit this week in Brussels. But the situation is fluid. Some of the Parliament's remaining objections could be met by shuffling portfolios, but Barroso — who has to keep member states happy, too — is keen not to open up a bazaar.

Barroso arrived in Rome with a clear message: the European Parliament is not to be trifled with. "We'll get what we wanted, which is an improved Commission," says Andrew Duff, a British Liberal Democrat M.E.P. That result would silence talk about last week's showdown having been just another example of pointless institutional muscle-flexing. By demanding higher standards for the Commission than the leaders of the member states themselves — and by proving its members had the gumption to stick together and stand firm — the European Parliament has made the most of its powers of approval. Now both institutions must turn to winning the attention and respect of the E.U. electorate at the start of more than a year of referendums on the Constitution. If they can't manage that, Berlusconi's second Rome ceremony will end up as a footnote to a failed Constitution.

• JAMES GRAFF | STRASBOURG
• Refusing to seat the new Commission, driving out the controversial Rocco Buttiglione — the European Parliament comes of age. What it means for the E.U.