The opacity of Roberta Metsola on the activities of your lobbyist husband raises suspicions in Brussels. The Maltese woman would have benefited from an “exception” in the code of ethics approved by the European Parliament after the outbreak of the Qatargateas reported Politicalone of the most influential media outlets in the community capital. A reform that forces senior officials in the European Parliament to declare any conflict of interestincluding “those that affect their family, their emotional life or their economic interests.” But this demand for transparency leaves out the top boss: the president herself.
Thanks to this exception, Metsola has not had to publicly report that her husband, Ukko Metsola, He is the main lobbyist in the EU. Royal Caribbean Groupthe world’s second-largest cruise company and therefore a highly polluting company. The result is that Ukko’s work has gone virtually unnoticed, even as worked to influence EU environmental legislationwhich is ultimately signed by the President of the European Parliament, states Political.
“Parliament Speaker Roberta Metsola, forgot to declare that her husband is a lobbyist for a large polluting company.How can we aspire to transparent institutions? “If their leaders are exempt from the rules they impose? They are not rules of variable application!” complained the co-president of the Left group in the European Parliament, Manon Aubry, which belongs to La France Insoumise.
[La Eurocámara reelige a la maltesa Roberta Metsola como presidenta por mayoría aplastante]
“The problem is that, according to the rules, the president is exempt from declaring this type of potential conflict of interest. The reform of the code of ethics that was made last year It is insufficient and has a hole that needs to be closed“, Nick Aiossa, director of the EU office of Transparency International, explains to EL ESPAÑOL. Furthermore, the European Parliament does not prohibit these conflicts of interest but limits itself to establishing transparency obligations, which in his opinion is not sufficient to safeguard the integrity of the institutions.
“The Metsola exception boils down to granting her husband unlimited access to power, the most valuable currency (to be sold) in Brussels,” written by Alberto Alemannoprofessor of Community law at the School of Advanced Commercial Studies in Paris.
The cabinet of Metsola categorically denies any irregularity or opacity in her husband’s activities. “The president has always followed all the rules of Parliament on declarations or conflicts of interest rigorously, both in the spirit and in the letter of the rules,” her spokesman, Jüri Laas, told EL ESPAÑOL. The so-called ‘Metsola exception’ was drafted by the Constitutional Affairs Committee and approved in plenary and is not a capricious decision by the president, he added.
“The work of the President’s husband is not new nor has it been revealed now. It has been duly registered and made public in the EU Transparency Register. The President has always used her position solely for the purpose of representing the interests of the European Parliament. The Parliament refutes, in the strongest possible termsany conjecture that alleges the contrary,” the spokesman concluded.
Metsola’s own husband has spoken with Political and maintains that the couple has built a kind of “Chinese wall” to prevent conflicts of interest. Since Roberta was elected president in January 2022, he has stopped doing lobby directly to MEPs “to avoid even the perception of irregularities.” In fact, Royal Caribbean has hired an additional person to interact with Parliament.
As part of their efforts to keep their professional lives separate, the Metsolas agreed that The president would not make any public statements about the shipping industry. “Even before my wife became president, as a member of the European Parliament for more than 11 years, she never said anything about shipping, let alone cruise ships,” Ukko told PoliticalHowever, this publication claims that Metsola has broken this promise twice, the last time in 2022.
The President of the European Parliament, who belongs to the family of European People’s Partyhas become one of the most influential leaders in the EU. Her image as a young and dynamic woman and her ability to Building bridges and generating consensus have earned him an overwhelming majority for his re-election last July: 562 of the 623 votes cast, 90% of the total, the highest vote ever. Rumours in Brussels are rife that her next aspiration is to become Prime Minister of Malta. The controversy over her husband’s activities casts the first shadows over her career.
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