“Disastrous,” was an oft-heard comment in Brussels about Rumania Jeleva’s performance Tuesday at a hearing by members of the European parliament. The Bulgarian, Rumania Jeleva (40), prospective commissioner for international cooperation, humanitarian aid and crisis response, could have done little worse than she did.

Her name had been circulating for weeks. Rumour had it her husband worked for a company involved with Russian organised crime. Nobody knew if these rumours had any merit. Then, on Tuesday, only hours before the hearing, an article appeared on the Financial Times Deutschland’s website containing a verifiable claim: Jeleva was said not to have reported the fact that she owned a consultancy firm. A direct violation of EU rules.

Jeleva responded clumsily to the accusation. At the start of her hearing, Thijs Berman, spokesperson for the Party of European Socialists, asked the obvious question about her alleged business interests. Others followed his lead, but Jeleva ignored the question entirely and set off on a ten minute monologue about anything but her consulting business. When the parliamentarians finally got her to answer the question she switched from English to Bulgarian, apparently afraid to make mistakes.

“In Bulgaria we have institutions, financial ones too,” Jeleva said. “They have checked everything and said it was okay.” That was barely convincing: the European Union has often condemned the Bulgarian authorities for corruption in recent years.

European MP: Jeleva less than truthful

She repeatedly tried to change the subject. “Let’s focus on humanitarian aid. People are dying, why should we waste our precious time?” she said.

After even more prodding, Jeleva finally said she had sold her company. But Antonya Parvanova, a Bulgarian member of the European parliament, begged to differ. “Only the name has been changed,” she said. “Mrs. Jeleva still retains a sixty percent interest in the company.”

Soon thereafter, documents –in Bulgarian- that apparently proved her point, circulated in the parliament.

The hearing proved painful for the president of the European commission, José Manuel Barroso, as well as his prospective commissioner. Barroso is keen to avoid a repetition of the debacle that occurred five years back, when the European parliament threatened to reject his proposed commission in its entirety because it had serious reservations about the Italian candidate Rocco Buttiglione, who had called homosexuality “a sin”. Commission officials made inquisitive phone calls to members of parliament, who were asked to disclose in advance what they intended to ask at prospective commissioner’s hearings.

Barroso defends his prospective colleague

Barroso had spoken out in Jeleva’s defence even before the hearing started, and he did not mince words. Barroso sent a letter to the parliamentary chairs of all parties stating that accusations needed to be backed by evidence, and that the burden of proof did not lie with the accused “as this was the case in some political regimes that Europe hasn’t fortunately got any more."

The party chairs have agreed to send Barroso a letter in reply. They want to know how he feels about Jeleva’s answers. They have also asked the parliament’s legal service for advice regarding the contradictory information.

Jeleva was not the only candidate commissioner who got in trouble on Tuesday. After the Lithuanian Algirdas Šemeta, a candidate for the taxation and customs union post, had been heard, the social democrats announced they had “serious doubts” about him, feeling his answers to many questions were too vague.

Thijs Berman felt Jeleva’s candidacy posed the biggest problems however. „She had no ideas of any substance and she lacked profundity. Perhaps all the personal questions made her mind reel a bit. But one would expect a humanitarian aid commissioner to be able to perform under stressful circumstances,” Berman said.

The European parliament is scheduled to vote on the new commission on January 26.