P9_TA(2021)0364

Request for defence of the privileges and immunities of Guy Verhofstadt

European Parliament decision of 14 September 2021 on the request for defence of the privileges and immunities of Guy Verhofstadt (2021/2030(IMM))

(2022/C 117/19)

The European Parliament,

— having regard to the request from Guy Verhofstadt of 12 March 2021, announced in plenary on 24 March 2021, for the defence of his privileges and immunities in connection with criminal proceedings to be initiated before the Procura Distrettuale della Repubblica presso il Tribunale di Trento (Italy),

— having heard Guy Verhofstadt in accordance with Rule 9(6) of its Rules of Procedure,

— having regard to Articles 8 and 9 of Protocol No 7 on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Union, and Article 6(2) of the Act of 20 September 1976 concerning the election of the members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage,

— having regard to the judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 21 October 2008, 19 March 2010, 6 September 2011, 17 January 2013 and 19 December 2019 (1),

— having regard to Rule 5(2) and Rules 7 and 9 of its Rules of Procedure,

— having regard to the report of the Committee on Legal Affairs (A9-0238/2021),

A. whereas Guy Verhofstadt, Member of the European Parliament, has requested the defence of his parliamentary immunity in connection with criminal proceedings to be initiated against him before the Procura Distrettuale della Repubblica presso il Tribunale di Trento (Italy) for alleged defamation by means of a social network; whereas the Procura Distrettuale della Repubblica presso il Tribunale di Trento concluded its preliminary investigation on the case on 22 December 2020;

B. whereas on 13 February 2020, Guy Verhofstadt posted on his own Twitter profile the following tweet: ‘Matteo Salvini faces charges for illegally holding migrants at sea after they had been rescued by the Gregoretti. Bravo Italia! Justice must be done. Hopefully the same will also happen for his massive corruption involving Russian oil kickbacks!’;

C. whereas, in making those comments, Guy Verhofstadt allegedly defamed the Member of the Italian Parliament, as defined in Article 595(1) and (3) of the Italian Criminal Code;

D. whereas Article 8 of Protocol No 7 on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Union stipulates that Members of the European Parliament shall not be subject to any form of inquiry, detention or legal proceedings in respect of opinions expressed or votes cast by them in the performance of their duties;

E. whereas Parliament has broad discretion as to the direction it wishes to give to a decision following a request from its Member for the defence of immunity (2);

F. whereas, pursuant to Rule 5 of its Rules of Procedure, in the exercise of its powers in respect of privileges and immunities, Parliament shall act to uphold its integrity as a democratic legislative assembly and to ensure the independence of its Members in the performance of their duties;

G. whereas a statement made by a Member outside the European Parliament may constitute an opinion expressed in the performance of his or her duties within the meaning of Article 8 of the Protocol No 7 on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Union, where it contains a subjective assessment having a direct and obvious connection with the performance of that Member’s duties in the European Parliament; whereas whether or not this is the case must therefore be determined by the nature and content of the statement and not to the place where it was made;

H. whereas the specific nature, but also the content, of the statement should also be assessed in the light of its context and the respective role and function in which the Member has made it;

I. whereas the statements made by Guy Verhofstadt in his tweet were clearly made in his capacity as a Member of the European Parliament, from his own Twitter account, which is, according to Mr Verhofstadt, exclusively reserved for his political communication in the context of the exercise of his mandate as a Member of the European Parliament;

J. whereas nowadays the political debate in which Members of the European Parliament participate, in the exercise of their mandate, increasingly takes place also outside Parliament’s premises, including on the internet or through the use of social networking services such as Twitter;

K. whereas that statement was made in the wider context of the political debate, the topic of which is recurrent in the European Parliament’s plenary, as well as taking place in many press outlets;

L. whereas, in this context, Guy Verhofstadt expressed similar opinions on the internet, both before and after the Twitter statement under consideration, for instance on Facebook in January 2019, more than one year before the Twitter statement, with respect to Mr Salvini’s alleged connections to Russia (3) or when Mr Verhofstadt made declarations several months later in a similar political context during the plenary debate on the State of the Union on 16 September 2020;

M. whereas, against this background, a direct and obvious connection between the statement under consideration and the parliamentary mandate of Guy Verhofstadt as a Member of the European Parliament can be deemed to exist;

1. Decides to defend the privileges and immunities of Guy Verhofstadt;

2. Instructs its President to forward this decision and the report of its committee responsible to the competent Italian authorities and to Guy Verhofstadt.

(1) Judgment of the Court of Justice of 21 October 2008, Marra v De Gregorio and Clemente, C-200/07 and C-201/07, ECLI:EU:C:2008:579; judgment of the General Court of 19 March 2010, Gollnisch v Parliament, T-42/06, ECLI:EU:T:2010:102; judgment of the Court of Justice of 6 September 2011, Patriciello, C-163/10, ECLI: EU:C:2011:543; judgment of the General Court of 17 January 2013, Gollnisch v Parliament, T-346/11 and T-347/11, ECLI:EU:T:2013:23; judgment of the Court of Justice of 19 December 2019, Junqueras Vies, C-502/19, ECLI:EU:C:2019:1115.

(2) Case T-42/06, Gollnisch v Parliament, cited above, paragraph 101.

(3) Facebook post of 9 January 2019: ‘No Putin t-shirt today for Mr Salvini! A police outfit instead. But Mr Salvini has a pact with Putin’s united Russia party & cannot be trusted by the Polish people’.