EP President Metsola also broke gift registry rules

There was no lack of good intentions in Strasbourg this week: more transparency, an end to diplomatic shenanigans and clear lobbying rules applicable to all. But as the European Parliament tried to pick up the slack after the biggest corruption scandal in its history, it was unable to really shift the focus.

In recent days, all sorts of inconvenient facts have come to light. First, about Speaker of Parliament Roberta Metsola, who has taken the lead in recent weeks in responding to the revelations. But this week it turned out that Metsola had also failed to register 142 gifts in time in the gift registry – including all sorts of luxury trinkets, bottles of champagne and a dry sausage. And she also gave up a paid trip to a wine chateau last October only last week, when it was actually supposed to be done in a matter of weeks.

Read also Fear reigns among MEPs over impact of corruption scandal

Spokespersons for Metsola pointed out that previous presidents had not recorded gifts and trips at all and that they planned to enter everything directly in the future. It is not expected to cause much commotion. But that the president was so cowardly with the already very flexible rulespainfully contributes to the image of an institution where everyone really does something.

It is the culture of “impunity and opacity” that the left-wing group in the EP has attacked harshly this week. The scandal, the French group’s president Manon Aubry said on Tuesday, “is now a sort of Netflix series, where we end up with a cliffhanger: what happens next?”

Crown Witness

And there’s still a lot going on – especially as a prime suspect in the scandal, former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, will provide valuable information about others involved in return for a reduced sentence. Leaked statements already showed that he is dragging his Belgian colleague Marc Tarabella down with him: Panzeri having paid 120,000 euros. Who will be next has been the subject of much speculation in Strasbourg this week.

And while the discussion about the new transparency rules is ongoing, the accusations have also begun. MEPs from groups other than the Social Democrats believe they have very little culpability – all suspects so far are from their group. But the fact that the Christian Democrats have openly attacked the “dark internal culture” of the Social Democrats is also causing unease. “Please don’t attack each other – the prestige of the European Parliament concerns us all,” says VVD MEP Malik Azmani.

At the same time, there are growing fears that the EP is becoming far too preoccupied with itself due to the mounting scandals – at a time when enough is happening to affect European citizens. Especially since there is still no agreement on the degree of rigor of the new rules. German MEPs in particular like to flaunt ‘freedom of mandate’: a principle which means that elected parliamentarians should not be unduly constrained in the mandate they receive from the voter.

At the same time, the measures proposed by Metsola – including a cooling-off period for former MEPs during which they are not allowed to lobby and an obligation to make meetings public – are far too weak, according to defenders of transparency. ‘I don’t think Parliament itself realizes that by not reforming, by not seizing this opportunity to do something substantial, it is exposing itself to more criticism,’ he said . said an EU analyst Camino Mortera of the Center for European Reform against Deutsche Welle.