Corruption in the EU parliament

Corruption in the EU parliament

30.05.2019

We are standing here in front of the EU Parliament building in Brussels. The EU Parliament consists of 751 representatives of its 28 member states. Its main tasks are the development and amendments of laws as well as the distribution of the approximately 960 billion Euros of the current 7-year budget. The Parliament also has a supervisory role over the EU Council, the EU Commission and the European Central Bank. The Parliament has the reputation of an inefficient, bloated bureaucracy. Its official resolutions and reports are mostly heavily encapsulated and endlessly long. As its latest big coup by the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) shows (https://www.kla.tv/12491), it favors large companies and torments the middle class and citizens. This work, however, is well paid. A EU parliamentarian earns 8,000 Euros gross per month, receives a monthly expense reimbursement of 4,320 Euros plus compensation for traveling, and also a daily allowance of 306 Euros for each day of attendance at official sessions of the committees of the European Parliament. Completely tax-funded, of course. With such good remuneration, one would think that they don’t need to cheat a few extra Euros. Today we speak with Andrei Sumar. He is 46 years old, Belarusian citizen and has lived in Belgium since 2016. He is the chairman of the political opposition movement “Renaissance”. On November 28, 2016, he took part in a session of the European Parliament in Brussels. By chance, he came across systematic fraud, self-enrichment and obstruction of investigations into suspected corruption. Also, some of the resolutions made by these bodies were unlawful because there was no quorum. How can this happen? We will learn about it now. Interview: Moderator: Hello Mr. Sumar! On 28 November 2016, you took part in a session of a committee of the European Parliament. Why were you there? Mr. Sumar: I was invited to the European Parliament in order to present a petition no. 0789 of 2015 dealing with the trade of Schengen visas. I am the author of this petition and was supposed to speak about the problems mentioned in this petition. Moderator: And at that moment you discovered something strange? Mr. Sumar: The day before the meeting, I memorized the names of the families and photos of all representatives who were responsible for the processing of the petitions. In total, there were 61 persons at that time. But when I was in the session, I could only identify 4 representatives who were present during the session. I was very surprised, endlessly surprised and later, when the official report on this session was published by the European Parliament, I was even more surprised because this report indicated a number of attendant delegates which was larger than in reality. I consider this contradiction as a fraud because each member receives an additional remuneration of 307 Euros for attending a session. Therefore, the delegates are paid for a fictitious work. Moderator: This fraud you are talking about, do you think it is an individual case or has this happened in other meetings as well? Personally, I have studied dozens of video recordings of other sessions that have taken place in the European Parliament. I compared the list of the delegates mentioned in the official report with the list of delegates on the video recordings of the meeting. And at almost every meeting I have identified members that were not present at all. I think this is a fraud. Members are not present, but someone signs the attendance list instead of these absent members, and then that member can receive an additional remuneration. During the election campaign, the candidates for the European Parliament promise their voters to do everything possible to improve the lives of the Europeans and to do everything possible for the good of society. But after the elections, they start stealing as European Parliamentarians. They steal directly out of the pockets of their voters. Moderator: And what did you do after these revelations? Mr. Sumar: Immediately, that means two days after that session, I informed the President of the European Parliament of this situation and of the absence of the members during the session. I also informed the office responsible for fraud investigation, the European Anti-Fraud Office. This matter was concealed everywhere. The authorities are doing everything they can to prevent this situation from being made public, to prevent the scandals. Moderator: So none of the authorities really considered your complaint. Did you try to inform the media? Mr. Sumar: I have sent dozens or hundreds of e-mails to European journalists and editors. Several journalists, a few dozen, have told me that this issue is very interesting for the public. But they can't follow up this information because their "boss" doesn't allow them to do so. This suggests that there is no real freedom of expression and of the press in the European Union. I was very surprised. I can give an example from the French television "France 3". I sent a piece of information to the editors of "France 3". And this television station produced and broadcast a program entitled "Great salaries, corresponding privileges and Europe's billions". In this report, the problem of the presence of Members at meetings of the European Parliament was slightly addressed. There was, so to speak, an illusion of crimes without any evidence of them. This way, they have tried to deceive the public, to show that the problem is known to the society and the authorities and that they will deal with it. But in reality, no one deals with this deception. Moderator: So, you contacted the authorities, as well as the media, but then a prosecution campaign was launched against you. What would you like to say on this subject? Mr. Sumar: In Brussels, people are spreading false information about me that is discrediting me. They are trying to break my links with society. The lawyers are influenced, I have already changed to about ten lawyers, because I see that the lawyers do nothing to help me in my situation. But what is worse and more difficult for me is the campaign of psychological and physical harassment that has been started against me. I understand and think that it was the authorities themselves who organized this harassment campaign. Details on these facts and my situation are published on our website "justiceforall.eu", where you can also find additional information on the subject of fraud in the European Parliament. Moderator: So, you noticed this fraud in the European Parliament. Are there other people who know about this fraud? Mr. Sumar: Oh, yes, of course. Usually dozens of people are invited to attend European Parliament sessions as observers. These people could testify against fraudulent MEPs. Above all, it should be pointed out that translators always know the presence of Members of their language group, i.e. the Members for whom they translate. But all these people are silent. I can see that they are afraid. It is very difficult to resist the intimidation campaign I am going through, for example. But, of course, Members of the European Parliament can also testify. Once an investigation has begun, I believe that dozens of other witnesses would be prepared to testify against fraudulent MEPs. Moderator: Do you have any concrete plans for the future? Mr. Sumar: Since the European authorities have refused to initiate the investigation of the case in the European Parliament, I am trying to raise this issue with the national authorities. I would also like to invite the citizens of the various countries to consult the documents relating to the meetings of the European Parliament in order to identify cases in which Members have committed fraud. Moderator: Thank you very much, Mr Sumar, for your time and courage in revealing what is happening in the European Parliament!

from sl.

Sources/Links: http://www.justiceforall.eu/
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitglied_des_Europ%C3%A4ischen_Parlaments#Entsch%C3%A4digungen_und_Verg%C3%BCtungen
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/de/sheet/29/mehrjahriger-finanzrahmen
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europ%C3%A4isches_Parlament