Eleven MEPs sanctioned for bogus election observation missions

The European Parliament has decided to crack down on onaze ​​MEPs.

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2 min

The European Parliament has decided to deprive eight of them of the right to carry out election observation missions for a year, three others receive only a warning.

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With our correspondent in Brussels,

Pierre Bénazet

Ecuador, Kazakhstan, Crimea, Venezuela, these trips took place during elections not recognized by the European Parliament.

Not only would they have boasted of their status as European elected representatives to conduct observation missions during elections where Parliament did not want to send observers because of insufficiently democratic electoral conditions, but in addition, several of these missions were carried out at the expense of the States visited ...

Election observation missions are one of the regular activities of MEPs;

their presence is considered as a guarantee from the EU for the validity of the results.

And some missions find themselves in the crosshairs when they are accused by non-governmental organizations of legitimizing dubious polls.

This is the case, for example, for the trip to Ukraine of five MEPs from the National Assembly a year ago on the occasion of the Russian constitutional consultation. They had gone to Crimea which had prompted a request for an explanation from the French ambassador in Kiev. In the list of deputies who receive a warning or a one-year travel ban, there are also four far-left deputies (including one from rebellious France) for election observation trips to Ecuador. and Venezuela. The only MP belonging to the Conservative Party only received a warning.

First of all, the European Parliament considers that certain MEPs forgot to mention that they were observers only in a personal capacity, they are those who received a simple letter.

But for the others, the institution stresses that the trips were often offered by the organizers of the elections who in return expected from the MEPs a positive report ...

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