A clearly tired and subdued Commission President, Mr Jacques Santer, yesterday told journalists he had been shocked and was "furious" at the tone and conclusions of the report on alleged corruption and nepotism. Yet even his anger and obvious hurt failed to impress.
A packed press room heard Mr Santer explain that although the Commission accepted it had no choice but to resign to honour commitments given to parliament when the committee was appointed, it felt it had been unjustly treated by the report.
He accepted that individual dossiers gave rise to legitimate criticism but rejected the extrapolation of this into a picture of widespread refusal to accept responsibility.
That was an insult to the many thousands of conscientious officials working for the institution under enormous pressure, he said.
With budget cuts freezing recruitment, the Commission simply did not have the human resources to police the 120,000 contracts it was supposed to administer, he said.
Repeatedly Mr Santer went back over a record of four years' intense activity: the launch of the euro, the Amsterdam Treaty, the beginning of enlargement discussions, a major employment initiative, the drafting of Agenda 2000, broad agreement on farm reform . . .
How could all of these achievements, he asked, be consigned to insignificance by a report focusing on six limited dossiers on frauds and irregularities, four of which had their origins before the Commission's own term of office?
That sense that the committee's findings of serious failures against the Commission had not been supported by the evidence was evident in the comments of many other Commissioners and senior officials.
The Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Mr Yves-Thibault de Silguy, said he felt "disgusted after having worked like a slave for more than four years on the single currency".
"It gives a feeling of disappointment to those who have worked to move things forward. It is bad for the institution and bad for Europe," he said.
Mr Santer said he had spoken to the German president of the European Council, Mr Gerhardt Schroder, and explained the situation, assuring him of the Commission's willingness to continue serving in a caretaker role until the council could appoint replacements.
And he refused to ascribe any particular blame to the French Commissioner, Ms Edith Cresson. The collective resignation, he said, meant that no one could be singled out for blame, although he did "deplore" her appointment of her friend and dentist, Mr Rene Berthelot, as the top AIDS consultant to the EU.
On a personal level, Mr Santer said he had emerged "whiter than white" and with "the necessary credibility and dignity" to carry on at the helm of what was now a caretaker Commission. The report's findings that he completely failed to clean up the mess in the Commission's security service he dismissed with a reference to his predecessor's responsibility.
Nor did he comment on the wider allegations that he had overall political responsibility for the loss of control by the Commission as a whole over the administration that it was supposed to be running.
The EU commissioners who have resigned over charges of fraud and mismanagement will continue to receive half of their pay for at least three years as a so-called "transition allowance", an EU spokesman said yesterday.
An EU commissioner has a basic salary of 13,870 euros per month (£10,915) and a bonus of 12.5 per cent, making a total of 15,603 euros (£12,279). Commissioners who have held office for more than five years receive half-pay for longer.
The allowance is paid to all commissioners who leave office having served for at least three years, whether by choice or at the end of their period in office, and a commissioner would receive it even if he or she were removed by vote of censure. A former commissioner reaching 65 is entitled to a pension of 4.5 per cent of basic pay multiplied by the number of years in office.