A formal complaint of harassment every month against officials in ‘Brussels bubble’

EUROPEAN Commission officials have averaged more than one formal sexual harassment complaint a month against their colleagues over the past five years, The Daily Telegraph can reveal, as MEPS demanded an end to the Brus- sels culture of sexism.

EU sources said there had been 65 complaints since 2012, resulting in “disciplinary sanctions for inappropriate behaviour” for 20 commission staff.

The commission, the EU’S civil service, said it had “zero tolerance for any form of harassment” and that rules to prevent it had been in place since 2006.

The Investigation and Disciplinary Office of the commission – dubbed the “internal ethics police” – scrutinises any complaints made through informal or formal whistle-blowing channels, sources said. Those channels are only open to the 33,000 people employed by the commission.

The Telegraph has learned of at least one instance where a bureaucrat used his position to make inappropriate suggestions to a female journalist.

The revelations follow an outpouring of harassment allegations aimed at the European Parliament. Meanwhile, a report in the UK found that half of women have experienced harassment while working or studying.

The “Brussels bubble” has long been notorious for a culture of casual sexism and harassment, with thousands of young interns scrambling for jobs in the self-styled capital of Europe.

More than a dozen young female aides told The Sunday Times that they had been targeted by older male MEPS who groped them. They had remained silent out of fear of losing their job and being blacklisted in Brussels.

In the past week, more than 30 allegations, including of rape, assault and harassment, have been made via an anonymous reporting forum set up by the Politico website.

At a debate yesterday in the European Parliament in Strasbourg ahead of a vote on a resolution today, Beata Goseiewska, a Polish MEP, said: “How inefficient is our institution, in the very heart of European democracy, that we have women molested and harassed?”

Margot Parker, a Ukip MEP, called for details of pending allegations against 15 MEPS to be made public.