The group presidents of the European Parliament, meeting in the Conference of Presidents on Thursday 11 April, did not take a decision on the withdrawal of access badges to Parliament for ExxonMobil, leaving this issue, as provided for in Parliament's Rules of Procedure, to the Secretary-General of the institution, Klaus Welle.
The latter, with the authorisation of the Quaestors, has the power to withdraw or deactivate an access badge for several reasons, in particular when its holder “has refused, without offering a sufficient justification, to comply with a formal summons to attend a hearing or committee meeting or to cooperate with a committee of inquiry”, which was precisely what the Greens/EFA Group had criticised ExxonMobil for in a letter addressed to European Parliament President Antonio Tajani on Thursday 21 March (see EUROPE 12220/16).
Contacted by EUROPE, MEP Molly Scott Cato (Greens/EFA, UK) said: “It is important that Exxon have their lobby badges removed to defend the credibility and integrity of the European Parliament as an institution that has the power to hold people and corporations to account”.
On the eve of the Conference of Presidents, about 100 NGOs had sent a letter to the group presidents asking them to remove ExxonMobil’s access badges because, according to these organisations, the American oil giant “failed to appear at the European Parliament’s hearing without sufficient justification, failed to answer legitimate questions about its role in undermining climate science and simultaneously attempted to discredit the proceedings behind the scenes”.
In a statement sent to EUROPE, several of these NGOs regretted the absence of a decision by the group presidents. “The Conference of Presidents shying away from putting ExxonMobil in its place is highly disappointing”, said Frida Kieninger, a Food & Water Europe activist.
According to these NGOs, this non-decision demonstrates the fossil fuel industry's hold on Parliament and, more broadly, its weakness in the face of corporate lobbying.
“Since 2010, ExxonMobil has spent over €35 million to delay and weaken essential EU climate action”, said Belen Balanya, a member of the Corporate Europe Observatory
The next meeting of the Quaestors is scheduled for 16 April.
Consult the NGO letter: https://bit.ly/2uWrMU9. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot - intern)