STRASBOURG, France, Feb. 10 (UPI) -- The European Parliament approved the new European Commission with a 488-137 vote Tuesday.
Another 72 members of Parliament abstained, the BBC reported. Members of left-wing and nationalist parties refused to back the commission nominated by President Jose Manuel Barroso.
The vote was delayed almost four months by bickering over the Lisbon Treaty, Euronews reported. The commission is the first to operate under the treaty, designed to give the European Union a more coherent foreign policy.
During debate, Nigel Farage, representing the United Kingdom Independence Party, accused the EU of replacing the iron curtain of the Soviet Union with an "iron fist," the BBC said. Barroso, from Portugal, told Farage he does not know what living under a totalitarian regime is like.
The new commission has to deal with a declining euro and other economic problems.
