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Matthew Vella
MaltaToday has presented a formal complaint to the European Ombudsman on the refusal by the European Parliament’s bureau to grant the newspaper access to Malta’s MEP’s accounts for their first term.
MaltaToday has made appeal to the EU Treaty and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union in its bid for access to the accounts, stressing that openness strengthens democracy and informs better the decisions of the Union’s citizens.
The bureau rejected MaltaToday’s request for access after this had been originally turned down by the secretary-general of the European Parliament, Julian Priestley.
The decision was taken by Czech MEP Miroslav Ouzky (EPP), who told this newspaper that disclosure of the accounts 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.
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.
MaltaToday had asked all five MEPs to present their statements of account for their first year in Brussels back in July. 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 had 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.
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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