By Toby Helm, EU Correspondent, in Brussels

EMMA Bonino has a talent for attracting publicity that is the envy of her colleagues in the European Commission. Ms Bonino appeared genuinely shocked by her confrontation in Kabul. But the first reaction of some officials in Brussels was that this must have been another publicity stunt by the hyperactive, chain-smoking commissioner, who looks after consumer affairs and fisheries as well as humanitarian assistance.

"This is outrageous stuff," said one Eurocrat, who was irritated that Ms Bonino had once again squeezed his own commissioner's announcements out of the morning press briefing. The fact that Ms Bonino had been threatened and other members of the crew beaten up made no impression on some officials. "It's just a Bonino set up," said another. "It is no coincidence she had a CNN television crew with her at the time."

Such cynicism is born mostly out of jealousy. To the intense irritation of other commissioners and their staffs, Ms Bonino gets in the headlines far more regularly than her colleagues. As a result, Jacques Santer, the Commission president, regards the energetic Italian as by far and away his best communicator in an otherwise dull team.

Ms Bonino's successful stunts of late have included being winched on to a British trawler during a row with UK fishermen over quotas and taking to the wheel of a juggernaut lorry which she has sent around Europe for several months to advertise the health benefits of sardine consumption.

She also receives much publicity by contradicting official commission policy, something for which she is rarely reprimanded by Mr Santer. Last year, to the irritation of most of her colleagues, she came out in favour of liberalising the laws on soft drugs. This year, she attacked a fellow commissioner, Yves-Thibault de Silguy.

His offence was failing to inform the public about the single currency and how it would affect "my mother".

Her mother, an 80-year-old from southern Italy, then became as famous for a few days as her daughter.