Although the European Commission says this was to help scrutinise these firms' activities, and that M. Franchet did not benefit personally, the latest developments draw the Commission further into the scandal.MEPs are asking why the Commission took so long to act, given that it knew about M Franchet's ties with these companies. The MEPs are also saying that the European commissioner responsible for Eurostat, Pedro Solbes, should have been aware of what was going on.Chris Heaton-Harris, a Conservative member of the European Parliament's budgetary control committee, said: "We have been asking about the links between these companies and the Commission Mr Solbes should certainly have known about these links. What will it take for him to admit his incompetence and go?"In 1999, as political pressure grew, the former commission president Jacques Santer was unable to force the resignation of Edith Cresson, the commissioner who faced most criticism because she employed her dentist as a scientific adviser.This time, too, Commission officials fear MEPs want to force a resignation, with Mr Solbes in the firing line. Romano Prodi, the president, has been summoned to appear before MEPs in September to discuss the crisis. Mr Prodi is in a strong position to demand the resignation of Mr Solbes because all the commissioners promised when they were appointed to quit if asked by the president.The latest discoveries appear to have made a mockery of promises of internal reform and of a pledge, given at the appointment of the new Commission, of "zero tolerance" of fraud and irregularities.. Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, is in a more powerful position than ever after parliament approved a media reform bill that leaves his huge empire intact and raises the possibility of it expanding even further.
The cases against the Prime Minister alleged that he and others bribed judges to induce them to approve corporate takeovers.That investigation was suspended last month after his government rushed through a bill giving immunity from prosecution to parliament's top office holders.The new media act allows Mr Berlusconi's company, Mediaset, to retain ownership of all three national commercial channels, ignoring a court ruling that one of them should be made public. It also redefines the advertising market to include print as well as television, and by allowing any one company to control up to 20 per cent of this market, it raises the possibility of Mr Berlusconi buying a coveted daily newspaper, such as Corriere della Sera, the biggest-selling paper in Italy.. France has been accused of disregarding the Colombian government to try to negotiate the release of a politician who has been held hostage by Marxist guerrillas for more than a year. Sarkozy was attempting to smooth over a three-way row between France, Colombia and Brazil.The dispute centres on the fate of Ingrid Betancourt, 41, a Colombian anti-drugs and corruption campaigner who stood as the Green candidate in the Colombian presidential election last year.Mme Betancourt - also a French citizen and the former wife of a French diplomat - was taken hostage by the Marxist Farc guerrillas while campaigning in a remote area in February last year.
Her case has become a cause c?bre in France, not least because she is a friend - and former pupil - of Dominique de Villepin, the French Foreign Minister.According to the Brazilian press, France made a spectacular but unsuccessful attempt earlier this month to negotiate Mme Betancourt's release. The weekly newspaper Carta Capital - citing Brazilian government sources - said that a French C-130 Hercules transport aircraft flew to a town in the Brazilian Amazon, 600 miles from the Colombian border. The newspaper alleged that there were weapons on board, which the French government hoped to exchange with the Farc guerrillas for Mme Betancourt.Those allegations have been dismissed as a "tissue of inanities" by Alain Rouqui?the French ambassador to Brazil, who has, none the less, been called in by the Brazilian authorities to explain what is going on. Daniel Parfait, the French ambassador to Bogota, confirmed that the Hercules had flown to the Brazilian town of Manaus on a "humanitarian operation". He denied there had been contact between France and the guerrillas.According to the Brazilian press account, the French officials aboard the C-130 claimed diplomatic immunity to prevent the aircraft from being searched by the Brazilian military. The newspaper said that the 16 or so French officials and crew on the plane included Pierre-Henri Guignard, who is the deputy head of the private office of the Foreign Minister, M de Villepin. The presence of such a senior official on a "humanitarian" mission is unusual, to say the least M.
