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Social media users have been criticising the European Parliament for supposedly being undemocratic, after a clip went viral showing a far-right Polish MEP being cut off mid-speaking.
The video shows Grzegorz Braun responding to a speech by Belgian socialist MEP Kathleen Van Brempt about the EU’s support for Ukraine.
“You are not helping Ukraine by prolonging this war,” he tells the European Parliament in the clip. “You’re not helping Ukrainian people who are looking for shelter, escaping their own country and…”
His microphone is then cut off by Esteban González Pons, vice president of the European Parliament, who gives the floor back to Van Brempt.
She notes that Braun’s intervention “wasn’t really a question” and responds that the parliament has been united since the beginning of Russia’s “illegal war against Ukraine” in giving military, financial and infrastructural aid to Ukrainians.
“[They] clearly stated they want to be part of a free Europe, and not to be part, in the future, of a Russian federation where there is no democracy and freedom of speech,” she says.
The clip is often shared with captions criticising the European Parliament’s supposed lack of democracy by silencing Braun while he was speaking, pointing at the supposed irony of Van Brempt talking about the lack of freedom of expression in Russia shortly afterwards.
However, in reality, González Pons was merely acting in line with common parliamentary procedure when he interrupted Braun, rather than targeting him specifically for his views.
The Cube reached out to the European Parliament’s press services for clarity, which pointed us towards Rule 178 of the Rules of Procedure.
It says that the president can give the floor to MEPs who indicate, by raising a blue card or using the electronic system, their wish to ask another MEP a question while they are talking.
The rule specifies that the question can be no longer than half a minute, and it needs to be related to what the speaking MEP has said.
“The President shall only do so if the speaker agrees to the question and if the President is satisfied that this will lead neither to disruption of the debate nor, through the putting of successive questions by raising a blue card, to a gross imbalance in the political group affinities of Members speaking in that debate,” the rules stipulate.
Ultimately, the president or vice president chairing a plenary can turn off an MEP’s microphone if they decide they’ve spoken for too long.
In the clip attached to the social media posts, we can see that Braun’s intervention lasts almost 40 seconds, from the moment he starts speaking until he is cut off.
So that’s over the 30-second limit and shows that Braun’s comments were cut off due to their length, rather than their content, which were linked to the debate on Ukraine.
The transcript for the full debate can be found here.
The parliament’s Rules of Procedure also contain other rules attached to the blue card system. For example, only one blue card question per intervention is usually allowed, and it’s meant to be a question, not a statement.
The parliament president can also deny blue card questions to keep time, and the MEP raising the blue card and the speaker can’t be from the same political group.
“The President may allow the Member who has asked such a question to react to the speaker’s answer for no longer than half a minute,” the rules say. “The speaker may then follow up on that reaction.”