"the Commission had no intelligence capability of its own"

But we knew that... Ok a cheap laugh but these comments about intelligence infiltration of the European Commission need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

She confirmed media reports of the existence of a note circulated internally by the EU executive warning its staff that "the threat of espionage against the Commission is increasing day by day."

"In a number of countries, information-seekers, lobbyists, journalists, private agencies and other third parties are continuing to seek sensitive and classified information from the Commission,"...

"One example of such cover is that of a trainee, the second is that of a member of a national administration who is on secondment, the third is that of a technical expert on IT (information technology) matters," Rampi said.

"We are not only pointing the finger at the journalists. It could be the pretty trainee with the long legs and the blonde hair," she told the briefing.

Well, err lobbyists prowl all over the Commission, but I guess most are working for corprate or NGO (which of course generally means Commission) interests. Long haired trainees, hmmm...

Well in the past when it came to stagieires being divvied up betwen DGs and Units there used to be an unseemly auction amongst the Heads of Unit as they bid for the better looking ones, it appears that that system must have backfired.

Attached national experts. Now I remember a conversation that I may have referred to before in which it became clear that Geoffrey Van Orden, now a Tory MEP had operated on secondment to the Commission as an MI6 chappy. He was accused as such by Gen Phillipe Morrillion MEP and didn't respond to the charge. He describes his job there thus,

where he worked on a range of foreign and security policy issues

But others obviously have a different view see this Parliament report which describes his unit as the,

"'Security Aspects' Unit of DG1A"

Do I believe that the Commission has what Valerie Rampi delightfully calls,

no intelligence capability of its own

No I don't.