British MEP fined for EU chief 'damp rag' insult

(BRUSSELS) -The European Parliament has fined a British Euro-MP on Tuesday for calling the EU's new president Herman Van Rompuy a "damp rag" in a rant in the chamber.

Nigel Farage, the UK Independence Party's foremost euro deputy, was fined almost 3,000 euros (4,080 dollars) for the comments he made last week during Van Rompuy's first appearance before the house.

"He really hoped that I would back down today and I haven't," said an unrepentant Farage after a meeting with EU parliament president Jerzy Buzek, adding that he would appeal against the fine.

Buzek, who pulled Farage in after the speech, said he defended "absolutely Mr Farage's right to disagree about the policy or institutions of the Union."

However that doesn't give him the right "to personally insult our guests in the European Parliament or the country from which they may come," he added.

"His behaviour towards Mr Rompuy was inappropriate, unparliamentary and insulting to the dignity of the house."

Farage, whose speeches have previously been denounced as unparliamentary by critics, began his speech last Wednesday by saying "I don't want to be rude."

"But really you have the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk," he told former Belgian prime minister Van Rompuy.

"Who are you? I'd never heard of you, nobody in Europe had ever heard of you," he continued, describing Belgium as "pretty much a non-country."

On Tuesday Farage, who will take his place in the EU parliament in Strasbourg next week, said the controversial speech had been "a bit tongue in cheek."

But he said the only people he "apologised to are bank clerks the world over."

Van Rompuy "should be big enough to look after himself and I am not going to apologise to the European parliament, it is supposed to be democratic," he said.

The penalty slapped on the British euro deputy is to forfeit 10 days' of EU parliamentary allowances, totalling 2,980 euros, which Farage said was the maximum fine available.

"It doesn't take away my right of speech but it does mean that if I want to go on saying what I want to say they could go on fining me. I could end up paying them to sit in the chamber," he said.