Gunter Verheugen: The Vice-President

European Commissioners are the Renaissance princes of our times; chauffeured and cossetted, their power often stretches into households across the Continent. In the Brussels pecking order, the Industry Commissioner is right up there; with the scratch of a Montblanc pen he can sign the death warrant of factories in a dozen countries.

Günter Verheugen, in his previous incarnation as Enlargement Commissioner, helped to change the face of Europe. In Poland, one of the countries that was admitted in May 2004, he is still regarded as something of a hero. Then, as Industry Commissioner and Vice-President of the European Commission, he became not only the top German in Brussels but also a would-be moderniser of a swollen bureaucracy.

But is the prince naked? Snatched photographs published in the German press show him entering the flat of his chief of staff, Petra Erler, after work and then leaving it with her the next morning, his suit a little rumpled. Clearly Mr Verheugen, 62, has enemies. Last summer he was snapped walking hand-in-hand with Ms Erler only weeks after promoting her to be his chief of staff. Ms Erler, 48, is an east German, one of the few to have risen in the EU bureaucracy, and she has a very determined manner. If Mr Verheugen is a Florentine prince, then she surely is his lord chamberlain.

Critics – almost all of them conservatives who would like to lever the Social Democrat out of office – say that if the two are lovers, then there has been a clear infringement of favouritism rules. The European Union may soon have its very own Paul Wolfowitz – the hapless head of the World Bank who was forced to step down after securing a pay rise for his girlfriend. If, however, it is normal for colleagues to hold hands on holiday, then Mr Verheugen is in the clear.

So the question is this: has Mr Verheugen fallen in love? And, in his passion, bent the rules? He claims vehemently that they are merely good friends. The plot thickened when more photographs were taken of him, wearing nothing but a red baseball cap, splashing on a Baltic beach with a naked Ms Erler. Absolutely normal, said the commissioner’s allies. Ms Erler simply has a thing about taking off her clothes. In response, Mr Verheugen took out an injunction against magazines publishing the nude pictures.

Now he has been caught in the lens again. He has been ringing his lawyers this time too. So far the Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has backed him, but one senses in Berlin that her patience is being stretched. She wants a successful German presidency of the EU, which ends on June 30, and does not want to be distracted by pictures of her Commissioner, clothed or unclothed.

Perhaps it is time for a statement from the Commissioner; the naked truth, please.

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