The Portuguese Minister of Justice, Francisca Van Dunem, once again appeared before the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE) on Thursday 4 February. While the meeting was to focus on the priorities of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU in respect of Justice, it quickly drifted on the lack of transparency regarding appointments to the European Public Prosecutor's Office (see EUROPE 12641/7).
The Portuguese Presidency has received the request for access to all EU Council documents concerning the appointments of Portuguese, Belgian and Bulgarian prosecutors to the European Public Prosecutor's Office, which was sent by the LIBE Committee earlier this week (see EUROPE 12649/34) and the procedures necessary to respond to this request have been initiated, she said.
In her letter of reply to the LIBE Committee sent on 3 February and seen by EUROPE, Mrs Van Dunem confirmed to MEPs the intention of the Portuguese government that all documents that will clarify those issues raised by MEPs will be forwarded to them. She hopes that some or all of the documents can be sent to the European Parliament as early as next week.
This announcement did not appease MEP Nuno Melo (EPP, Portugal), who asked the Minister for further explanations on the appointment of the Portuguese prosecutor, José Guerra (see EUROPE 12634/11).
For her part, Isabel Santos (S&D, Portugal) welcomed the Minister's good cooperation regarding access to documents; she also accused the EPP group of running a disinformation campaign against the Portuguese government.
This statement was called to order by MEP Jeroen Lenaers (EPP, Netherlands), who pointed out that the EPP was not the only group to have expressed concerns about the appointments that had been made to the European Public Prosecutor's Office. “To accuse each other in this house of the serious accusation of running disinformation campaigns is, in my opinion, unacceptable”, he said.
In an attempt to ensure that the speaking time was respected, the Chair of the LIBE Committee , Juan Fernando López Aguilar (S&D, Spain), noted that this was the third consecutive debate in the European Parliament on this issue and was of the opinion that this was “more than enough”. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)