EXCLUSIVE: Santa’s naughty MEP list for 2023

Apart from the Qatargate usuals, twenty-seven members of the European Parliament are set to receive coal from Santa Claus this Christmas, according to 2023’s ‘Naughty List’, seen by Euractiv. From fraud and kickbacks to harassment and the spreading of fake news, no political group has been spared.

In exclusive comments to Euractiv (no point in anonymity here, right?), Santa condemned those on this year’s list and spoke of his concern over the severity and number of incidents recorded.

He warned he would be “even more vigilant in 2024” because of the new batch of MEPs set to take their seats following the June European Parliament elections.

“You’ve been warned,” he added.

Very naughty

KICKBACKS: Lara Comi (Forza Italia/EPP), Italy, was sentenced to four years and two months of prison in Milan on 2 October for receiving kickbacks in Lombardy, following a trial involving over 60 defendants. Previously, in 2019, she was placed under house arrest due to allegations of corruption in the European Parliament.
MALFESEANCE: Álvaro Amaro (PSD/S&D), Portugal, was handed in April a three-and-a-half year suspended prison sentence and ordered to pay a €25,000 fee for malfeasance in public-private partnerships between 2007 and 2011 while he was the mayor of the Gouveia municipality – leading to his resignation later the same month.
COVID-19 FAKE NEWS: Milan Uhrík (Republika/NI/far-right), Slovakia, was ordered by a judge in March to apologise publicly for spreading fake news about a doctor on Facebook during the COVID-19 pandemic, accusing him of being paid out by the government in exchange for promoting their “restrictive” policies.
HARASSMENT: Monica Semedo (DP/Renew, now independent), Luxembourg, was sanctioned by the European Parliament in April after allegations of harassment from her staff.
MORE HARASSMENT: Mónica Silvana Gonzales (PSOE/S&D), Spain, was sanctioned by the European Parliament in January for psychologically harassing her assistants
MORE AND MORE HARASSMENT: Anne-Sophie Pelletier (La France Insoumise/The Left), France, was expelled from her party in December after 13 separate reports of harassment towards parliamentary assistants.
OUT OF ELECTIONS RUN: Pernille Weiss (DKT/EPP) has been barred by her party from running again in the 2024 EU elections after an internal investigation uncovered cases of harassment towards her parliamentary assistants.

Naughty

MORE KICKBACKS: Latvia’s Nils Ušakovs (Saskana/S&D) and Andris Ameriks (GKR/S&D) are in the process of losing their immunity for bribery and fraud charges brought forward by Latvia’s anti-corruption bureau. They allegedly received kickbacks from the allocation of public transport contracts during their time at the helm of Riga.
HATE SPEECH: Poland’s Beata Mazurek, Tomasz Poręba (PiS/ECR) and Beata Kempa, Patryk Jaki (Suwerenna Polska/ECR) had their immunity lifted in November and will be prosecuted in Warsaw for hate speech against migrants for disseminating a video during the 2018 local elections in Poland.
MORE HATE SPEECH: Romania’s Christian Terhesch (PNCR/ECR), Denmark’s Anders Vistisen (Dansk Folkepartei/ID), and Italy’s Isabella Adinolfi (Forza Italia/EPP), were denounced for hate speech before European Parliament President Roberta Metsola in May by three colleague MEPs, after describing transsexual women as “male perverts” and affirming that the legal recognition of the existence of transgender women is “the biggest threat to women,” blaming Islam for violence against women and blaming Muslims for “many examples of murder and rape”.
RAPE: Alexis Georgoulis (former Syrzia/The Left), Greece, is awaiting his trial in Belgium for alleged rape in 2020, after having his parliamentary immunity in June, following complaints by a European Commission official.
FRAUD: Maria Spyraki (New Democracy/EPP), Greece, got her immunity lifted in June as the EU’s public prosecutor is investigating her for allegedly having committed fraud in relation to the management of her parliamentary allowance and the remuneration of her accredited assistants.
HARASSMENT UNDER INVESTIGATION: José Ramon Bauzá (Ciudadanos/Renew), Spain, is being investigated by the European Parliament for allegedly harassing his assistants.
RUBBISH MONEY: Włodzimierz Karpiński (KO/EPP), Poland, a former minister with Donald Tusk, had to be released from prison in November – arrested for allegedly taking a bribe of over €1 million from a company bidding on a rubbish collection contract – for him to assume his MEP post following his predecessor’s resignation.
SEXUAL MISCONDUCT, OUT OF ELECTION RUN: Karolin Braunsberger-Reinhold (CDU/EPP), Germany, was blocked by her party from running for the EU elections again in March, accused of sexual misconduct towards an assistant during a winery tour.

Possibly naughty

WINE BAR ‘ADVISER’: Mick Wallace (Independents/The Left), Ireland, made headlines in February as it was revealed he had failed to declare between €1 and €499 a month as an ‘adviser’ to wine bar businesses during his times as MP in Ireland and as an MEP since 2019 in Brussels.
FUNDING DISINFORMATION: Viktor Uspaskichas (Darbo partija/NI), Lithuania, was accused in July of funding disinformation by financially supporting an online portal home to many fake news and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and Ukraine, among others.
UNDECLARED TRIPS: José Ramon Bauzá (Ciudadanos/Renew) appears again on the list, as he was engulfed in controversy in June after it became public that he belatedly reported trips sponsored by interest groups just a month after Qatargate broke out.
AZERBAIJAN INFLUENCE: Germany’s Engin Eroglu (Freie Wähler/Renew), Slovenia’s Franc Bogovič (SLS/EPP), Latvia’s Andris Ameriks (GKR/S&D) and Poland’s Tomasz Poręba (PiS/ECR) made headlines at the start of 2023, in the aftermath of Qatargate, for undeclared trips to Azerbaijan, raising questions on the influence exercised by third countries.
LINKS TO CHINA, FRAUD: Maximilian Krah (AfD/ID), Germany, AfD’s lead candidate for the upcoming EU elections, was revealed in October to have suspicious links to China following an increased pro-China stance, while he was also suspended for three months from ID for manipulating a PR contract for the group in February.
RUNNING AWAY: Clara Ponsatí (Juns/NI), Spain, was detained in Barcelona in March, charged with disobedience, following years of avoiding an arrest warrant for participating in the organisation of Catalonia’s illegal referendum in 2017. She was let go hours later after she refused to answer the judge’s questions.
ANONIMOUS BULLYING: Manuela Ripa (ODP/Green), Germany, was accused in October by nine staffers and three interns of bullying in an anonymous letter to her party, no formal charges were pressed.
DISAPPEARING PHARMA REPORT: Germany’s Christian Ehler (CDU/EPP) & Denmark’s Pernille Weiss (DKT/EPP) were involved in a controversial and mysterious withdrawal of a report by the European Parliament’s STOA, a non-political secretariat in charge of commissioning scientists to conduct studies website, raising questions on undue influence by the pharma lobby.