Patriots Call for the Establishment of a Committee of Inquiry on Transparency and Accountability

Strasbourg 01/04/2025 - The Patriots for Europe want to focus on initiatives that can make a difference. We therefore propose the creation of a fully-fledged parliamentary committee of inquiry, in accordance with the Treaties and the European Parliament’s Rules of Procedure. This inquiry committee needs to investigate, without prejudice to the ongoing criminal investigations on these matters, alleged corruption cases and undue interference from external actors within the European Union institutions and agencies and come up with recommendations to improve scrutiny, transparency and accountability. We invite all political groups to join this initiative.

The Patriots for Europe are committed to fighting corruption and influence peddling, and to improve financial and lobbying transparency in the European institutions. Qatargate, Pfizergate, Reynders Gate, Timmermans Gate, and now the Huawei investigation are only a handful of recent examples that prove the EU has a systemic problem with undue influence on the legislative process. Our citizens deserve that these instances of alleged corruption are thoroughly addressed.

Our proposal for an inquiry committee would be much more powerful than the recently established inter institutional ethics body, which is being pushed by the left. An ethics body would only address future conduct and would sweep past misconduct under the rug. Moreover, such a body will not prevent these abuses of power from occurring, nor does it deal with financial transparency or preventing fraud and corruption. Prioritising an ethics body only emphasises the Parliament’s inability and unwillingness to address abuses of power in its own ranks.