'-}
Posted on 12/07/2006 11:58:23 PM PST by MadIvan
Europe's second-highest ranking commissioner was fighting to save his political career last night over pictures showing him naked on a beach with his chief of staff.
Günther Verheugen, who is married, is shown — wearing only a baseball cap — with his newly promoted aide, Petra Erler, on a nudist beach in Lithuania.
José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, rushed to the aid of his German Vice-President yesterday, saying that he expected “people’s private spheres” to be respected.
However, controversy over Mr Verheugen, 62, who is also Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry, is raging in Germany, three weeks before the country is due to take over the European Union presidency.
Media coverage has completely overshadowed the plans of Angela Merkel, the Chancellor, for the presidency, such as membership negotiations with Turkey and revival of the European constitution.
The mass circulation Bild newspaper published details yesterday of Mr Verheugen’s holiday with Ms Erler, 48, in August when the couple were seen paddling in the sea and relaxing in the dunes. His wife did not join them on holiday. Bild did not publish the photographs, but Focus magazine is expected to publish the photographs on Monday.
Mr Verheugen strenuously denied any intimate relationship with Ms Erler after Focus published earlier pictures of his Lithuanian holiday in which the couple could be seen holding hands. “I believe the question of with whom and where I spend my holiday in August is a purely private affair, which does not concern anyone other than my wife who was informed about it,” he said.
The commissioner is one of the most powerful in Brussels, not only as deputy to Mr Barroso, but is also at the helm of a campaign to break the bureaucratic stranglehold on industry.
In a recent interview, Mr Verheugen criticised the EU bureaucracy for not adapting to the new political culture. “There is a view that the more regulations you have, the more rules you have, the more Europe you have,” he said. “I don’t share that view.”
As a result Mr Verheugen has made enemies in Brussels. So too, it seems, has Ms Erler, who is regarded as the key figure in Mr Verheugen’s department. Both enjoy special protection in Berlin. Mr Verheugen is a senior Social Democrat, and sacking him would cause a crisis in Germany’s Grand Coalition Government. Ms Erler is the only East German in the higher ranks of the European Union and was a member of the last East German Government. One of her staff at that time was a certain Angela Merkel, then a lowly press spokeswoman.
That support now looks shaky. Mr Verheugen was widowed in the 1980s, then remarried to Gabrielle. Mrs Verheugen says that she knew of her husband’s summer holiday to Nida on the Baltic coast of Lithuania last August. Mr Barroso has also defended Mr Verheugen’s promotion of Ms Erler.
The new photographs will raise eyebrows, but still do not prove that Mr Verheugen was lying about his relationship with Ms Erler. They could, however, be seen as violating the Commission code of ethics.
Herbert Reul, the Christian Democratic European Parliament deputy, called for his resignation. “It’s unacceptable that an EU Commissioner should be running around naked on a beach with a senior female colleague,” he said.
The Government’s main hope is that Focus may relent and not publish the snapshots.
Commissioners caught out
Edith Cresson
Hired her dentist as a scientific adviser in 1999, while she was Comissioner for Education, Research and Sciences. He was paid £100,000 for two-and-a-half years’ work, which was declared useless
Jacques Barrot
In 2004, failed to reveal a previous conviction for embezzlement, later voided by a 1995 presidential amnesty. However, became Transport Commissioner
Rocco Buttiglione
Rejected as Italian nominee after expressing the view that women belonged in the family and that homosexuality was a sin
Ingrida Udre
Withdrawn as Latvian nominee after protests in Latvia about a corruption inquiry into her party and her waste of taxpayers' money by taking her hair stylist on foreign trips
Certainly there's to much regulations and red tape. But would Nigel be the one doing just one thing about it ? He's just the guy laughing loud at his voters. He's a fraud - a bad joke - that's all.
Three little words: Common Agricultural Policy.
Ivan
There's no such thing as an 'internal market'.
There is only the market.
L
You say this right after you say they're freeing the internal market. This is what is known as a contradiction.
But would Nigel be the one doing just one thing about it ?
Yes. He wants us to leave. I agree with him. I am sick to death of being told that our sovereignty needs to be pooled.
Ivan
Let's see them laughing when they wipe out and their tender flesh hits that ice at 20mph.
Ach, Ja....I remember wifey asking me once why that German was toting his bag of marbles like that.
"By the way, just say no to naked Germans."
I can't do that. My wife is German.
That's all of his concept isn't it ?
A hamster could do his job.
It's a good concept. Sometimes the best ideas are not drowning in nuance.
I may like individual Germans, but how you run your country is very different to how mine is run. I'm not interested in my country being run like Germany's either. Given this, the best that we can do is point ou the differences, as Farage is doing, and build a consensus to leave. We would still like to maintain trade relations, but no more encroachment on our laws, our traditions, our regulations.
That's Farage's message. If you don't like it, well that's really too bad - but it's not for you anyway.
Ivan
You could sure make it sound like one.
the CE sign as an example removed lots of inner european barriers. Before that, every country could ban european products by tailoring their regulations for their internal marekts. Now - if a portugeese heart monitor fullfills a singular standard it may be sold in any eurpean country.
Where's the socialism in that ?
We have to overcome this 'protect my small bussines and let me exploit my neighbour' shit in europe. Did it harm england to have BMW producing the MINI ?
Does it harm europe that we coordinate together the reduction of a tax money financed agrigultural sector ?
Did it harm england to help poland portugal and ireland out of the shit ?
What did Nigel EVER do that improves living conditions for anyone ?
I, for one, could care less.
Perhaps he was even getting some "work" done too.
I guess all I know of him is in the video. I liked how he took the commission to task. We could use someone like that at the UN or in N.O.
Blah blah blah - perhaps you ought to try feeding this line to butchers in Britain who had to spend thousands re-equipping their slaughterhouses to meet EU standards, or perhaps to green grocers who had to ensure the curvature of bananas was up to spec.
Where's the socialism in that ?
An unaccountable, unelected centralised authority passing regulations which reach into the heart of business regulation and even the regulation of justice in our countries - that is undemocratic socialism. Let's also talk about the billions spent propping up food prices - the wine lake, the butter mountain, and so on - from the Common Agricultural Policy. That particular wheeze hits us several times over - we pay higher food prices, our tax money goes to price supports and furthermore welfare payments are higher because of the higher food prices.
We have to overcome this 'protect my small bussines and let me exploit my neighbour' shit in europe. Did it harm england to have BMW producing the MINI ?
Red herring. BMW taking over production of the Mini is a good thing. What I object to is an undemocratic body making our laws, telling us what to do, and running it according to standards which are not British, and have no basis in the British tradition. We are much more capitalistic and have a longer tradition of democracy than you do - we don't need to be told how to run things, thanks.
Did it harm england to help poland portugal and ireland out of the shit ?
I shouldn't have to be told to pay for it. I wasn't even asked. Furthermore, as South Korea and Singapore prove - massive subsidies from another country are not required to achieve prosperity. I know that might make your head explode, but it's true. Ireland, for example, did not prosper until...they cut taxes and slashed regulation. The EU isn't happy with this and wants it to change in tax harmonisation plans.
What did Nigel EVER do that improves living conditions for anyone ?
I'll explain this slowly - the EU takes far more than it gives to us. Getting out of it is a good thing from our perspective. I realise that you're all indoctrinated over there to believe that without the EU that it'll be 1939 all over again, but we don't see things that way. The differences in our perspectives on the EU ought to be telling you that perhaps the EU and Britain aren't a good fit, Nigel is right, and that we ought to clear out, because we are never going to see eye to eye on this. I refuse to be told by Frenchmen, Germans, Belgians, etc that this is how my country has to be run. My response to that is a huge "f*** you".
Ivan
I have never ever found a single german or italian or french guy that insinuated that the english had to change their traditions.
The only one talking about this without interruption is UKIP. They make quite a nice living from the very easy trick to sell english people that they may not be english anymore tomorrow. That all they do for living - amazing ! I really have to work harder for my money.
I'll be in cornwall next holyday and enjoy scones and tea - hopfully the EU doesn't rule that out - but Nigel will protect you from the german EU lobbyists that will take away your red doubledecker busses, your fox hunting, your red phone booth and your football teams.
Oh wait - that all happened allready ;-)
If only some english people would notice that their lifestyle is apprechiated by many people in germany - especially in countries like Hamburg - that we grew up with Monty Python and Douglas Adams (who made fun of german know it all students) the beatles, mr bean and we are on our search for a german maggy thatcher - and will probably never find it.
England is a part of Europe because it's needed - not because it's a subject to be changed to another germany.
Nigel is just a fraud.
One of these things is not like the others. Pop Quiz: Which does not belong in the set?
I'll try and make this clear one more time - if you persist in this nonsense, I won't speak to you any further. This discussion is symptomatic of why British people dislike the EU; it's symptomatic of why I utterly despise it. I am telling you my concerns, how I view it, giving examples like the CAP - and you're running roughshod over everything I'm saying and dismissing it out of hand. Your attitude is perfectly reflected in Brussels - it wouldn't surprise me if you were working for the Commission.
If you don't listen, and think about what is being said, you will anger more than the British. Learn to shut up, absorb what you're being told by the people who object to it, and don't go off on this idiotic tangent of yours where you basically say that the EU is a wondrous joy. It isn't. It adds regulation and red tape as you've agreed it does. It adds costs through the Common Agricultural Policy. It tells us how our courts are to be run through the European Court on Human Rights. No one votes for them - they are undemocratic, unaccountable, and dictate far too much. Enough.
if you cannot accept this, it's not my problem you're having this mental failing. But do keep talking - I can hold you up as an example to others as to why we need to leave the EU - there is no dealing with people who are as blinkered as you are.
Ivan
Well if you try and hold me up just have a propper breakfast.
... anyhow you will have your reasons why you're willing to leave the grounds of fact oriented discussion and move to insults.
Under these circumstances I certainly agree stopping the discussion.
'-}
I can't do that. My wife is German.
I can't say no to my naked wife either...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.