The politician picked by Prime Minister David Cameron to be Britain’s next man in Brussels has faced a second round of questioning from MEPs.<br /><br />Jonathan Hill went on a charm offensive on Tuesday, dismissing British press reports that painted him as a eurosceptic as untrue.<br /><br />But it is as yet unclear whether he had done enough to win backing from parliamentarians.<br /><br />Hill again faced repeated questioning about his lobbying past.<br /><br />“To state the case extremely simply, there are no conflict of interests; I have no financial interests of any sort from the past,” said the Conservative peer.<br /><br />“I will behave in the interest of the whole European Union, not in the interests of any member state or indeed of any financial interests within any particular member state.”<br /><br />Yet leading German Green MEP Sven Giegold said he still had some concern about Hill’s nomination as financial services commissioner.<br /><br />“The doubts remain about the portfolio because he’s not ready to live up to the transparency he promised for the future,” said Giegold.<br /><br />“He was not giving us names for which financial services companies he worked for and therefore he seems like a man who seems like he has something to hide.”<br /><br />Ashley Fox, a British Conservative MEP, rallied around Hill, suggesting that there was an ‘anti-British’ bias against him amongst some parliamentarians.<br /><br />“I thought Jonathan Hill gave a very confident performance. In fact he gave a good performance last time. I don’t think that it was the performance that was really the reason for him being called back,” said Fox. <br /><br />“He was called back because he is a British conservative. So there are political reasons why we are going through this second hearing.” <br /><br />MEPs will vote on the whole European Commission on October 22nd.
