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. . . the EU's parliament has finally come of age.

"Amidst all the yelling,", it says, "the European Parliament woke up to find it had lost its milk teeth, and had grown from a much-patronised talking shop into a genuine European institution".

"With the assertion of the role of the democratically elected parliament over the diktat of the national governments," the paper says, "a new era has begun."

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"There isn't a parliament in the history of democracy that didn't have to fight fiercely for its powers," Edith Mastenbroek, 29, a first-term Dutch Socialist, told Time. "That we did it over an issue of human rights — that's just beautiful."

Buttiglione's resignation was the inevitable coda to the month's main theme: a newly assertive and triumphant European Parliament.

"Our will was tested and our will has prevailed," crowed Graham Watson, leader of the Parliament's Liberal group.

Peter Mandelson, one of the architects of New Labour's victories, at a dinner of senior Socialist group politicians on Tuesday evening, called the group's intention to vote down the Commission "destructive, infantile, emotional and tribal." Mandelson's call was ignored, as were the many other entreaties from member states, including Spain and Germany. Those Socialist-led governments would have much preferred to dodge a bothersome train wreck over the new Commission. But Buttiglione's comments about gays and women, and the fact that he had been nominated by Berlusconi, amounted to a cause that Greens, Socialists and a majority of Liberals were willing to go to the mat for. "This week was the birth of a truly European Socialist faction," said Martin Schulz, the German leader of the Socialist group. Despite pressure from national governments, all our Socialists were thinking like Europeans."

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And the Liberals were thinking like European leftists.

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Graham Watson (Liberal Democrat, UK), leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) in the European Parliament, welcomed Barroso's Commission withdrawal. "Today this house on the River Rhine grows in stature. Its will was tested: its will prevailed. (...) We asked for our considered judgment to be treated with respect. At every stage, our willingness to stand by that judgement was doubted, and mistrusted and tested. Tested to the edge of political crisis."

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The European Liberals held the balance of power in the 732-seat European Parliament:

Leftist GUE: 41
Eurosceptic ID: 37
Socialists: 200
Greens: 42
total left: 320

Centre-right EPP: 268
Nationalist UEN: 27
total right: 295

Liberals: 88
others: 29

It is the first time a Commission has been rejected before it has even taken office - so it represents a direct challenge to member states, who, until now, have strongly guarded their right to send whomever they want to Brussels.

Martin Schulz, leader of the Socialists and among the most vocal critics of the Barroso Commission called it "a decision of the utmost significance for the EU and indeed for its future".