European Parliament takes no action in Azerbaijan case

Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, has decided to take no action against six MEPs who went to Azerbaijan last year without declaring their sponsored trips to the Parliament's administration, as required by the code of conduct for MEPs, European Voice reports.

A cross-party advisory group of MEPs that monitors application of the code of conduct had found the six to be in clear violation of the rules, which are supposed to prevent undue influence on the work of the Parliament. But the rules leave it to the president to decide whether and how to take action in cases where the code of conduct has been breached.

Schulz this week sent letters to the six MEPs who had violated the rules informing them of his decision. They are Ivo Vajgl, a Slovenian liberal; Kristiina Ojuland, an Estonian liberal; Oleg Valjalo, a centre-left Croatian; Jacek Wlosowicz, a Pole from the Europe of Freedom and Democracy group; Slavi Binev, a Bulgarian from the same group; and Nick Griffin, a far-right MEP from the UK. The Green group in Parliament rejects Schulz's decision and will raise the issue at a meeting of the leaders of the political groups in the Parliament.

A spokesman for Schulz said that since the letters had not yet been sent, it would not be proper for him to comment. But an official said that the breaches were considered insufficiently serious to warrant sanctions and that Schulz believed it would be enough to issue a warning that deadlines must be observed in declaring sponsored trips.

The official said a more important issue was the impression created by individual MEPs observing elections outside the EU that they were speaking on behalf of the Parliament. The foreign-affairs and development committees will therefore be asked to propose guidelines to prevent this impression from emerging.

All six declared their trips only in January, after the advisory group had asked them to do so and warned them of consequences. Under the implementing measures of the code of conduct, MEPs have until the last day of the month that follows an event to declare any funding they received to attend that event, including travel or accommodation expenses paid for by the organisers.

European Voice reported in October that at least nine MEPs had gone to Baku privately to observe Ilham Aliyev's re-election for a third term as Azerbaijan's president. Most of the trips had been organised and sponsored by the country's parliament and by two organisations that refused to reveal the source of their funding, the Society for the Promotion of German-Azerbaijani Relations (GEFDAB) in Berlin and the European Academy for Elections Observation (EAEO), registered in Belgium.

Of the nine MEPs, just three did not infringe the rules. Two liberal MEPs, Hannu Takkula of Finland and Alexandra Thein, a German, declared their trips within the deadline, although Takkula did so on the wrong form. Jir?í Maštálka, a Czech communist, paid his own way.

Schulz is now considering how to proceed in the case of three MEPs who went on sponsored trips to China last autumn without declaring the invitations. The advisory group has informed him that the three broke the rules.

They are Nirj Deva, a centre-right UK MEP; Derek Vaughan, a centre-left UK MEP; and Eleni Theocharous, a centre-right MEP from Cyprus. Theocharous has not made a declaration while Vaughan and Deva did so only at the end of February, after a warning from the advisory group. They declared business-class return flights from London to Beijing and up to six nights in luxury hotels.

ANN.Az