"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.

Well spotted

Good to see that Con Home has noticed that somebody had been given the thankless task of trying to set up the Movement for European Reform. Bit late, given that I reported it here on the 28th November, but I guess I'm glad they have caught up.
However they claim that Geoffrey Van Orden is suited to the job because he knows the Bulgarian politicians well, after he was the Parliament's rapporteur for Bulgarian entry into the EU.

Couple of points. At the time he was doing the normal thing of swearing that there would be no major movement of people from Bulgaria to the UK (against all evidence of previous enlargements), and indeed describing those who warned against the enevitable as xenophobes, no Geoffrey, realists.
The second point is that this pious hope,

"Mr Van Orden has particularly strong links with Bulgarian politicians and, alongside the Czech ODS, Sofia may be the third major capital city of the new grouping".

The problem is that the party which was unveiled by Cameron in Brussels earlier this year as the third pole of the new group, singuilarly failed to get any MEPs elected, and is unlikely to change that position in 2009. So Van Ordinaire will have his work cut out.

There again according to the Tory press officer over here, the new grouping is not in fact anything to do with leaving the EPP,

"The Conservatives' Peter WILDING said MER is a philosophical platform, not a political party, and does not interfere with EPP".