RATHER than endure the political equivalent of the Charge of the Light Brigade, José Manuel Durão Barroso retreated yesterday before the certainty of seeing the entire incoming EU commission mown down by the European Parliament less than a week before it was due to start work. Its rejection by majority vote, the next president of the commission restrainedly observed, would not have been “positive for European institutions or for the European project”. He requested, and was given, a delay of several weeks before finally presenting what may or may not be a greatly changed team for parliamentary approval.

Exit the commission’s next president, tail between legs, amid triumphalist applause. Martin Schulz, German leader of the Socialist group, preens himself on “a victory for the European Parliament, especially for my Socialist Party”. Senhor Barroso himself appeared to agree, telling MEPs that “these last days have demonstrated that the European Union is an intensely political construction and that this Parliament . . . has a vital role to play in the governance of Europe.”

Before even taking up office, the commission’s incoming president must be a very tired, demoralised man. How else could he be pretending that MEPs have covered themselves in glory, when the opposite is true? The EU Parliament has indeed proved itself to be “intensely political” — imposing the tyranny of the majority in a distasteful blend of opportunism and intolerance, and with a cynical disregard for any damage inflicted on the effective management of the EU.

The man at the centre of the storm, the conservative Italian Christian Democrat Rocco Buttiglione, was declared unfit to serve as justice and home affairs commissioner by left-wing MEPs: not for lack of competence, but for holding views that secular liberals find repugnant. He was asked whether, as a Catholic, he considered homosexuality a sin; he replied, as would most Catholics, that he did, but that this was irrelevant to policy since it was not a crime; that morality and law did not, and should not, mix, and that he also believed in freedom, which implied “not imposing on others what one considers correct”. Impose their views is precisely what MEPs have done –— some perhaps genuinely believing that this was a vote for tolerance, others, possibly including Herr Schulz, in continuation of a parliamentary vendetta against Silvio Berlusconi.

Less than 24 hours before beating the retreat, Senhor Barroso had told MEPs that reshuffling his team would constitute “surrender to a culture of intolerance”. If Senhor Barroso, after springing to the defence of the civil liberties of his commissioner-designate, has opted for surrender, that would set a terrible precedent. This looks depressingly like a white flag.

The immediate consequence is that the new EU commission will not take office on November 1. In banal practical terms, this is not yet a crisis. Instead of packing its bags this weekend, the remnants of the tarnished old Prodi Commission will stick around for a while, doing, much as it has always done, nothing much and that not well. Books will continue to be cooked and whistle-blowers penalised, and the bureaucrats will have a bit longer to work out how to resist the strongly liberal, pro-market culture that Senhor Barroso intends to impart. The sky will not fall in.

Thus, if the EU Parliament’s apparently successful hounding of Signor Buttiglione affected only the smooth running of the Commission, it would be a matter of small consequence, an insignificant flutter in the EU dovecotes. But if an EU citizen is to be debarred from public office for holding personal beliefs that are at odds with the prevailing social orthodoxy — and to be debarred despite a categorical statement that he would not let those beliefs intrude upon policy decisions, or result in any form of discrimination whatever — then it is not only “the European project” that is undermined; it is democracy itself. In democracies, majorities rule with the assent of all, an assent founded on the belief that the interests of all citizens will be taken into account. The EU can neither thrive nor merit respect if it does not respect diversity; it cannot be a “victory” for the EU Parliament when a majority of its members refuses to countenance the honest expression of personal beliefs that a majority of MPs happens not to share.

Forty-four years ago in the United States, the Catholic convictions of a candidate for high public office were also hotly debated. The candidate, in response, acknowledged the need to state “not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to me, but what kind of America I believe in”. He spoke of the separation of Church and State; he spoke of the oath to uphold the Constitution; and he spoke of religious liberty, and said: “This year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed; in other years it has been — and may someday be again — a Jew, or a Quaker . . . Today, I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped apart.” John F. Kennedy became the first Catholic to be elected US President.

Now, Signor Buttiglione is no JFK. Even inside Italian politics, let alone outside, he is — or was — hardly a household name. Yet his defence, though clumsily put, is essentially the same as Kennedy’s. This is not at bottom about an individual, but about non-discrimination and equality under the law — for Catholics, as for homosexuals and any other minority.

The only way out of this mess would be for enough MEPs to realise what is at issue here, for a new majority to accept the concessions already offered by Senhor Barroso and let the Buttiglione candidature stand. All other “solutions” — a reshuffle, or his exclusion from the commission — would be victories for intolerance.

For MEPs to talk of a triumph for democratic accountability is an insult to their voters — those few who vote at all for that unloved Parliament. It has been more like a witch-burning.

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