Today’s guilty verdict for Marine le Pen and many of her party members is a welcome serving of justice for a case that involved the misspending of European parliamentary allowances to the tune of almost five million euros. The court ruled le Pen and her party had spent allowances granted by the European Parliament on national party matters.
Transparency International EU has been following this case, and others like it, for years, and the exposure of le Pen’s fraud scheme is a welcome one. Nevertheless, given the European Parliament’s lax attitude to how its MEP allowances are spent, today’s verdict can’t be seen as putting an end to corrupt practices at the institution. The European Parliament does not take a systematic approach to eliminating corruption within its own walls. Indeed, a 2023 investigation by Follow the Money revealed how almost 140 MEPs misused misspent EU Parliament allowances. And yet the Parliament still does not require any proof of how the general expenditure allowance granted to each MEP, which amounts to 4,950 euros per MEP per month, has been spent. Parliament refused to reform accountability mechanisms for its allowances in 2018. Instead of stringent rules and sound financial management Parliament has resorted to trusting its money is spent legally, to the detriment of its finances, and the trust in the institution itself.
Nick Aiossa, Director at Transparency International EU, said, “Justice has rightly been served in this case, where the French far right brazenly embezzled funds intended for European parliamentary duties, not national politics. But the European Parliament must do more to clean up its own act and properly manage and monitor how MEPs are spending public money.”
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