“The next step is now we are positioning the court to annul the decision and to prompt the President of the Parliament to put it up to a vote in the [plenary],” ESN’s Anderson told POLITICO.
Inquiry committees are convened to look into allegations of wrongdoing by the EU’s institutions, including the powerful European Commission, which has faced bruising condemnation over its refusal to disclose correspondence with vaccine-maker Pfizer in recent months.
ECR lawmaker Charlie Weimers said “this is not a political issue for the court to consider, but rather a procedural, legal one where rules quite obviously were not followed … we are rather optimistic that this will go our way.”
Daniel Freund, a Green MEP who is typically outspoken against far-right initiatives, said the lawmakers “might have a point that, legally speaking, it should have probably been decided in plenary.”
“I’m not advocating that we now let the Patriots pester us with one committee after another,” Freund said. However, he cautioned that committees of inquiry are meant to be a tool by the opposition to scrutinize governance, and said the fact that the Parliament requires a majority of groups to support it in plenary defeats its purpose.