THE EU Commission President, Mr Jacques Santer, had no regrets yesterday about his latest broadside against the Tory Euro-sceptics, except the fact that his speech was seized on in Britain as party political cannon fodder.
"If the President shut up just because there is an election going on in one member-state or another he would never say anything at all, and that is not his intention," said the Commission's chief spokesman in Brussels, Mr Klaus van der Pas.
Nevertheless, officials at Commission headquarters were clearly astonished at the response to the President's outburst.