The European Parliament blacklisted five French MEPs from the far-right group Identity and Democracy for making false election observation trips, including Thierry Mariani, the unfortunate head of the National Rally in regional elections in Provence-Alpes -Cote d’Azur. This one, indicates the EUobserver.com site, as well as Hervé Juvin, Philippe Olivier, Jean-Lin Lacapelle and Virginie Joron, was sanctioned after having observed polls in Crimea annexed by Russia and Kazakhstan and carried out reports of complacency.
These “Fictitious surveillance” were made at the invitation of autocratic host governments on all-expense-paid trips a few days before elections were held.
“It is an urgent problem of great importance”Stefanie Schiffer, head of the European Exchange, an NGO that documents this practice, told EUobserver. “This also concerns the national deputies of Europe and it is done systematically on a large scale”, she declared, estimating at 5,000 the number of false observers invited to the last Russian presidential ballot.
Quoted by “Le Monde” on May 6, Thierry Mariani declared:
“Everything is transparent. The inviting power is Russia, and we give details of the costs covered in the declaration sent to the European Parliament. “
This blacklisting means that these MEPs will be banned from participating in other official European Parliament election observation missions until the end of this year.
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