The withdrawal of Rumiana Jeleva’s candidacy for the European Commission has triggered recriminations and triumphalism among the European Parliament’s political groups.

Martin Schulz, the leader of Parliament’s |Socialists and Democrats group, said: “Her decision to go is the best outcome for everyone, including herself. After such a poor performance in the Parliamentary hearing, which highlighted her incompetence, this outcome was both inevitable and predictable.”

He said that the EPP should not have continued to support her candidacy.

“I regret the way in which the EPP group tried desperately to save her despite her performance,” Schulz said. “It was a serious mistake to put political allegiance before basic competence to do the job,” he said.

But centre-right MEPs claimed that Jeleva’s candidacy had been sabotaged by Parliament’s Socialist and Liberal groups, accusing them of pre-planning her downfall.

“Obviously she has fallen victim to a campaign prepared well before the hearings,” a spokesman for the centre-right European People’s Party said. “We are very sad to see her go,” he added.

Andrew Duff, UK Liberal MEP who is the Parliament’s lead organiser of the hearings, described talk of a plot as “complete nonsense”.

He said the decision by political groups other than the EPP not to approve Jeleva was “not a plot but a political decision, a political conclusion”.

Duff said that Jeleva was right to stand down, both because of questions about her transparency and the code of conduct for commissioners and because of “serious problems relating to her competence”. “It is quite proper she is gone,” Duff said.

He said that the EPP should resist any urge to engage in a “partisan bloodbath”, as this would violate Parliament’s formal agreement with the Commission on the conduct of the hearings.