Well, here’s a surprise (not): the EU’s bureaucracy (in this case the EU ‘parliament’s’ legal service) looks as if it has managed to shut down the row over Chirac’s new EU commissioner, Jacques Barrot. This, you may remember, concerned the fact that Barrot didn’t bother to disclose that he had been convicted of involvement in a political funding scandal some years ago.
Barrot’s defense was that he didn’t have to mention the conviction, because he benefited from an amnesty. The EU Parliament’s legal service agrees, and, as matter of strict law, they are probably right. The amnesty effectively nullified Barrot’s conviction so there was, I suppose, literally ‘nothing’ to disclose.
Well, yes and no.
Barrot may not have had to disclose the conviction, but given the (regrettable) importance of the job to which he was being appointed, he had a clear moral obligation to do so.
He should resign.
.