Brussels, 23/06/2000 (Agence Europe) - The Liberal Democrat Graham Watson, President of the Citizens Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, indicated that this Committee intends to examine more loosely, during its next meeting, the circumstances that lead, last week, to the resignation of Anton Pelika, Austrian member of the European Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia whose seat is in Vienna. In a communiqué, Mr. Watson recalled that Mr. Palinka, who had to recently paid a hefty fine for "allegedly defamatory remarks" about Jörg Haider, justified his resignation through the administrative hurdles created by the Austrian government, which is preventing him from working properly.
Last week Waston wrote to Mrs. Beat Winkler, who leads the Monitoring Centre, to ask her for explanations: this Wednesday, the MEPs where able to have an initial exchange of views with Mrs. Winkler who said she was the object of strong criticism for having asked the independent documentation centre to gather all the statements made by the FPÖ in recent years, and who doubted that the Monitoring Centre would be able to accomplish its mission.