swissinfo.ch.- Brussels, Jan 25 (EFE) – The European Parliament has cancelled or postponed all trips it had planned for the first six months of the year to Morocco or Qatar as a result of the bribery scandal that has affected the institution, parliamentary sources told EFE on Wednesday.
The cancellations include five trips by different delegations and parliamentary committees, two to Qatar and three to Morocco, which have been reconsidered in the light of revelations that both countries are allegedly involved in a corruption scandal to influence the decisions of the European Parliament.
One of the cancelled missions, which had already been cancelled before Christmas, was a mission planned by the Legal Affairs Committee between 20-24 February to assess the impact of the World Cup in Qatar on human rights and the environment, while an EU-Catar interparliamentary meeting between 18-22 February has also been cancelled in recent days.
With regard to Morocco, the January meeting of the Union for the Mediterranean parliamentary assembly in Rabat did not take place, and a meeting of the Morocco-EU Joint Parliamentary Committee in February and a meeting of the Energy Committee in the same month to ‘explore the country’s potential for renewable energy production’ have been cancelled.
Two more meetings of the Union for the Mediterranean parliamentary assembly are scheduled in Rabat in February and March, as well as a summit and plenary session in May. Although they have not been officially cancelled and the aim is not to sever relations but to avoid further interference, preparations for these trips have not yet begun.
A trip planned for June by the Civil Liberties Committee, which was to explore EU-Morocco cooperation on migration and border surveillance, in particular the fight against irregular migration, and how the EU-Morocco agreement on mobility and migration is being implemented, has been left in the air.
The coordinators of the Civil Liberties Committee voted this morning on whether to cancel or postpone the mission and, at the request of at least the People’s and Conservative groups – who insisted on keeping it – the decision was taken to postpone it to a later date that has not yet been decided.
All of these missions had initially been authorised by the European Parliament’s leadership, but Parliament’s President Roberta Metsola urged group leaders to reconsider trips to the region, except for those to international forums or similar engagements.
“There was a tacit consensus in the Conference of Presidents – which brings together Metsola and the leaders of the political groups – to re-evaluate all trips to these countries,” a spokesperson for the President told EFE.
