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Matthew Vella
The European Parliament’s bureau has rejected MaltaToday’s request for access to the financial accounts of Malta’s five MEPs, after the request was originally turned down by the secretary-general of the European Parliament, Julian Priestley.
The decision appears to have been taken by just one member of the bureau, Czech MEP Miroslav Ouzky (EPP), who told this newspaper that disclosure would undermine the MEPs’ privacy and individual integrity.
The newspaper’s application for the disclosure of the “secret” accounts was not even up for discussion amongst the 20-person bureau, with the official response having already been drafted prior to the meeting, informed sources told MaltaToday.
Green MEP Gérard Onesta was the only member of the bureau to have protested against the fact that MaltaToday’s request was on the agenda without discussion.
Onesta even called for a vote on whether the MEPs’ expenditure could be released without disclosing other third party recipients – the vote was defeated by 19 votes to one after a debate on the legal ramifications of the request.
The 20-person bureau, which takes care of financial decisions concerning MEPs, is composed of vice-presidents from the political groups, mainly made up of socialist and European People’s Party MEPs, including the parliament president Josep Borrell Fontelles and just one member each from the greens, liberals, and communists.
MaltaToday had asked all five MEPs to present their statements of account for their first year in Brussels back in July and will continue to pursue their disclosure through a complaint to the Ombudsman.
In its application to the bureau, MaltaToday put forward its case that the disclosure of Malta’s MEPs’ accounts were of interest to the Maltese and European taxpayer, who are also constituents of the MEPs in question.
Ouzky said that “as to the fact that persons who present themselves to the public must expect some degree of public scrutiny” the MEP accounts were already subject to “internal and external checks”, namely the Budgetary Control committee in the European parliament, and the European Court of Auditors.
Ouzky said that since not even MEPs were not allowed to inspect the personal files and accounts of other members, “all the more reason that it should be rules out in the case of persons from outside Parliament.”
Nobody out of Malta’s five MEPs has so far accepted to disclose their expenditure and income from the European parliament, which is believed to tally up to some Lm40,000 a year, making them amongst the highest-paid Maltese individuals today.
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
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