Herman Van Rompuy says he is a better Briton thank Nigel Farage

Bruno Waterfield in Brussels Published: 10:21AM GMT 04 March 2010

Nigel Farage fined �2,700 for "damp rag" comments

Mr Van Rompuy has damaged his overpower to report his feelings when Ukip"s European personality described him as a "damp rag" from the "non-country" of Belgium in reply to his lass debate to MEPs.

"I thought this is roughly unbelievable," he pronounced of Mr Farage"s comments last Thursday. "I was ashamed, in his place, for that man. What a mild display."

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Taunting Ukip"s British nationalism, the EU President insisted that he, a Belgian, not Mr Farage, had behaved similar to a loyal Briton.

"I reacted in a typically British fashion, only similar to the British at their best, phlegmatically. I only let it wash over me," he told the Flemish VRT broadcaster.

Mr Farage responded to the sneer at by accusing the British supervision of trick by similar to the Lisbon Treaty that combined the EU President post for Mr Van Rompuy.

"Britain invented parliamentary democracy to equivocate carrying domestic leaders imposed on us. We will never accept unfamiliar rule. What is unimaginable is that the domestic chosen mount shoulder to shoulder with him," he said.

While Mr Van Rompuy has privately refused "to bob to the level" of Mr Farage by fasten calls for the Ukip MEP to be punished, the European Parliament authorities have been less "phlegmatic".

Jerzy Buzek, the council president, on Tuesday fined Mr Farage �2,700 for the "damp rag" comments.

"I cruise that, unfortunately, a little of the comments that you done were descent both to Mr Van Rompuy privately and to the part of state from that he comes," he wrote in a minute to the Ukip MEP.

"Such poise is, in my view, inapt and unpleasant to the grace of the parliament. The really substructure of parliamentarianism and democracy is that leisure of countenance should apply oneself others."