The MEPs of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) voted against the allocation of an own-initiative report on the topic ‘Arab Peninsula, challenges and prospects’ to the ‘Identity and Democracy’ (ID) group.
While the Coordinators’ meeting on 4 May had indeed granted the report to ID, the S&D group asked that this decision be put to a vote. Twenty-six Members voted in favour, 33 against and 12 abstained. While ID and the overwhelming majority of the EPP voted in favour, the S&D, Renew Europe and GUE/NGL were opposed. The Greens/EFA abstained. The ECR group was divided between those in favour and abstention by its Polish members.
Ahead of the vote, S&D coordinator Tonino Picula of Croatia explained his group’s opposition, criticising ID for its support of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime. “Can we accept that the face, the voice of the European Parliament in our relations with the peninsula should be the voice of the ID group?” he wondered, saying that this could “undermine the power” of the AFET Committee.
The coordinator of the ID group, Frenchman Thierry Mariani, recalled that his group had proposed three topics for an own-initiative report and that the coordinators had chosen this one. He pointed out that his group had never had a report, even though Parliament has been in place for almost a year. “This parliament calls itself democratic. If you deny us the report, it sends the message that the main opposition group will never get a report”, he added.
He was supported by Mick Wallace (GUE/NGL, Ireland), who said it would be “wrong to reach a decision whereby a group, simply because its views are not agreed with, would not be allowed to participate in the European project”. However, that Member did not take part in the vote.
See voting details: https://bit.ly/2WQ8rCS (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)