European Commission President Jacques Santer (R) and his spokeswoman Martine Reichert (L) hold a news conference March 16 during which Santer announced all 20 members of the European Commission have resigned in the wake of a scathing independent report into fraud, nepotism and financial irregularity at the EU executive. The hard-hitting 144-page report, compiled by an independent panel of experts in just six weeks, accused commissioners of losing control over the sprawling Brussels bureaucracy that proposes and implements EU laws.

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