£500m European Parliament opened with access protest from Irish MEP

In an own-goal of nightmarish proportions, the new European Parliament, built at a cost close to £500 million, was opened yesterday with a protest by the Munster MEP, Mr Brian Crowley, over the abysmal wheelchair access to the building.

To huge applause from fellow MEPs, Mr Crowley intervened at the start of the session to denounce the reality that he could not sit with his own political group because there was no ramp in the chamber and to travel between two floors of the building had taken him nearly half-an-hour.

This was not the message of inclusiveness they should be sending at the dawn of the new millennium, he told MEPs, many of whom were also deeply frustrated by design flaws in the new building. He ended with a quote from George Bernard Shaw: "To hate your fellow man is not the ultimate sin, but to be apathetic towards him, that is the essence of inhumanity."

Despite an unhappy start MEPs went on to elect the French European People's Party candidate, Ms Nicole Fontaine, as President for the next 2 1/2 years with a decisiveness that bodes well for her likely successor, Mr Pat Cox, the leader of the Liberals.

Ms Fontaine, a popular vice-president of the outgoing parliament, received 306 votes, well clear of the 278 absolute majority needed on the day. The Socialist candidate, the former Portuguese president and prime minister, Mr Mario Soares, was only able to muster some 200 votes, while the Finnish Green, Ms Heidi Hautala, got 49.

There were 60 spoiled votes, including five for Mr Soares which were not even on ballot papers, reflecting the considerable procedural confusion of many of the 56 per cent of the assembly who are new to the House.

Observers in the parliament were confident that Ms Fontaine's vote would substantially transfer to Mr Cox in 2 1/2 years under the agreement between Liberals and the EPP. Fianna Fail MEPs also made clear they would support Mr Cox.

Speaking after her election Ms Fontaine made it clear that the hearings on the new Commission, starting on September 20th, would be no formality. If Parliament viewed some candidates as unsuitable it would have no hesitation in asking the Commission President-designate to return to national capitals to replace them.

Mr Prodi insists that he will not allow his commissioners to be picked off one by one and that he alone will fire them. The parliament only has a treaty right to vote on the whole team, and he will insist they go no further.

Commissioners are understood to have agreed last weekend that they will stand or fall together and are expected to respond in identical terms to the institutional questions that will be asked of them in pre-hearing questionnaires being drawn up by MEPs.

Meanwhile it emerged that the committee which will give Ireland's nominee, Mr David Byrne, his grilling, the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy Committee, will be chaired by a British Conservative, Ms Caroline Jackson. Mr Byrne will be in Strasbourg today for Mr Prodi's address to the Parliament. Mr Cox welcomed Ms Fontaine's election, saying it reflected the need to find a political equilibrium between the institutions.

Ms Fontaine (57) is a member of the Giscardian UDF, the moderate pro-European wing of the French right, and is the first woman elected to the Presidency since Simone Weil in 1979.

The election was an embarrassing setback for the Portuguese Socialists, whose candidate is highly regarded for his role in stabilising democracy in Portugal in the 1970s. But their adamant refusal to recognise the realities that the EPP now held the whip hand in the Parliament lost them not only the first term but the second and propelled the EPP into an alliance with the Liberals.