Romania's Vosganian drops EU Commission application

BUCHAREST, Oct 28 (Reuters) Romanian senator Varujan Vosganian stepped down today as a candidate for EU commissioner following media accusations of corruption and collaboration with the communist-era secret police.

''I have asked Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu to withdraw my candidacy,'' Vosganian told private Realitatea TV.

Tariceanu has defended Vosganian, who says the accusations against him are ''groundless''.

A spokesman for Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who held back from immediately accepting Vosganian's nomination earlier this week, said today that the Commission acknowledged the Romanian politician's withdrawal announcement.

''The commission takes note of the fact that Mr Vosganian has withdrawn his candidacy. The consultations are ongoing,'' Barroso's spokesman Johannes Laitenberger said.

Ex-communist Romania and neighbour Bulgaria are due to join the EU in 2007 after missing out on the bloc's first wave of enlargement into eastern Europe in 2004 due to slow reforms.

Barroso has already given the nod to Bulgaria's choice for commissioner, European affairs minister Meglena Kuneva.

Vosganian, 47, heads the budget and finance committee in the senate. He is a member of Tariceanu's Liberal party, one of four groupings in Romania's centrist government.

''Prime Minister Tariceanu salutes Mr Vosganian's gesture, by which he wishes to prevent the transfer of an internal political campaign damaging to Romania's image and interests to a European level,'' government spokeswoman Oana Marinescu told a news conference.

Marinescu also said Tariceanu will consult with Barroso to nominate another person to the post, but she declined to give a timetable or name any potential candidates.

REUTERS PB RK2340