UDRE

Em dezembro de 2010 foram implantadas na microbacia estudada, algumas unidades demonstrativas de restauracao ecologica (UDRE).

Udre, who had been given the taxation brief, was attacked over allegations of financial irregularities in political funding.

He said that the President-designate needed to make further changes in the Commission and singled out Hungary's Lazlo Kovacs, Ms Udre and Dutch candidate Neelie Kroes who the EP had found "lacked the necessary competence or ability".

This time round Latvia does not want to have its candidate commissioner rejected (as happened to Ingrida Udre in 2004).

The Latvian nominee, Ingrida Udre, who had been given the taxation brief, also came under fire over allegations of financial irregularities in the funding of her political party.

LV - Latvia: Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs (Latvijas Cels, the Latvian Way Party/EPP), who found himself at the Commission by default (candidate Ingrida Udre was turned down by Parliament), has not fared badly in spite of his hesitant beginnings.

The incoming Latvian commissioner Ingrida Udre was also rejected, and later replaced by Andris Piebalgs, while Barroso was forced to switch Hungary's Laszlo Kovacs from energy to taxation after he failed to demonstrate mastery of his original brief.

On the one hand, the EP strengthened its political role with the inauguration of ten new commissioners in 2004 after two of the candidates were rejected: the Latvian, Ingrida Udre and more importantly, the Italian Rocco Buttiglione, because of his opinions, which were found to be too homophobic.

When the current Commission was nominated in 2004, MEPs had no hesitation in rejecting the Italian Rocco Buttiglione or the Latvian Ingrid Udre. Moreover, some members of the European Socialist Group have already shown their dissatisfaction with some of the nominated candidates because of their liberal leanings and the need to maintain a Commission that is politically neutral.

Provocative comments by Italy's Rocco Buttiglione and the poor performance by Hungary's Laszlo Kovacs and Latvia's Ingrida Udre led the Parliament to force Mr Buttiglione and Ms Udre to withdraw and Kovacs to given a different portfolio.

But he did not have his group's backing for his position, apart from the British Liberal Democrats, and it was clear that there was no appetite to force out another member of the Barroso Commission after the Parliament had got rid of Italian nominee Rocco Buttiglione and Latvian Ingrida Udre and made Mr Barroso move Hungarian Laszlo Kovacs from the Energy to Taxation portfolio.

The Commission spokeswoman also rejected comparisons with the case of Latvia's first nominee for the new Commission, Ingrida Udre, who was replaced in the face of questions over involvement in a party funding fraud - although she had not been convicted of any offence.