The letter is devastating. And it is not the first. Just two years ago the same groups, socialists, greens and The Left, filed a complaint with the then president of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, for the “partisan use” of Dolors Montserrat, head of the PP delegation in the European Parliament and president of the Petitions Committee. At that time, there was talk of a “clear lack of impartiality”, of not following “the criteria of independence and justice” and of the “use of the European institutions in a partisan manner”.
BACKGROUND | Socialists, Greens and The Left denounce before the president of the European Parliament the “partisan use” by Dolors Montserrat of the Petitions Commission
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Two years later, the complaint is even worse, because the three groups point to Montserrat’s maneuver to win a vote on September 8, when the president of the Petitions Committee changed the voting criteria in the middle of the session to favor a case presented by the PP spokesperson in les Corts to talk about Mónica Oltra and oppose the Valencian Government, and about which the European Commission had already said that it was not within the competence of the Union.
And what happened that day? That the weighted vote formula, always used by Dolors Montserrat, by which the representative of a political group is the repository of the entire correlation of forces of the commission, no longer served her. Why? Because Renew was divided, between the coordinator Jana Toom -opposed to the thesis of PP, Cs and Vox- and the Citizens MEP Jordi Cañas, and the ID ultras were missing -the Lega group and Le Pen-. And what did Montserrat decide supported by Vox and Cs? Improvise a formula that suited him: let those present vote. And, of course, at that time, there were more deputies from the right because, coincidentally, they were MEPs until reaching a quorum of 9, because the rest of the groups had left the room in protest at Montserrat’s decision and after having asked to leave the decision at a later meeting of the committee’s coordinators.
Thus, the socialist, green and Left groups sent on September 28 to the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, a letter signed by Cristina Maestre (PSOE, coordinator of the S&D in the Committee on Petitions), Margrete Auken (Socialistisk Folkeparti , coordinator of the Greens in the commission) and Sira Rego (IU, coordinator of La Izquierda). The signatories ask the President of the European Parliament that the vote on September 8 be declared null.
The letter also went with a copy to Montserrat herself, who has replied to Metsola defending the decisions she made that day: “I strongly reject all these unfounded accusations, which translate into a new political attack on my role as president of the Petitions Committee and, ultimately, in an unjustified attack against the democratic functioning of this Institution”.
The facts were dealt with in passing at the last meeting of the Bureau of the European Parliament, and it is expected that they will be dealt with again at a future meeting.
In the letter, the three groups affirm that they transfer a “formal complaint” against Montserrat “for a serious breach of the procedural rules during the meeting on September 8”, the day of the vote on minors under the guardianship of the Valencian Generalitat. The signatories explain that they transfer the complaint “given the seriousness of the situation”, the result of a “blatant conflict of interest of Montserrat” by including in the agenda a request “made by a member of his own party and against the criteria of the European Comission”.
The three groups maintain that their conduct in the vote was “inappropriate” and “eroded the rights of MEPs” and “the credibility and standards of the European Parliament”.
