European Parliament must release documents on convict Lagos’ expense claims
The European Parliament must release information on the allowances and expenses claimed by MEP and convicted criminal Ioannis Lagos, who was elected to the European Parliament for the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn group in 2019, EU judges have ruled.
In a ruling published on Wednesday, the General Court of the Court of Justice of the European Union said that the European Parliament must publish documents “relating to reimbursements of travel expenses and subsistence allowances paid by the Parliament to Mr Lagos and, on the other hand, to documents relating to reimbursements of travel expenses paid to his parliamentary assistants.”
In October 2020, Lagos was sentenced by a Greek court to 13 years and 8 months’ imprisonment for membership and leadership of the Golden Dawn criminal organisation.
Even though the European Parliament waived Lagos’ immunity at the request of the Greek authorities five months later, he did not resign from the European Parliament and continued to receive allowances corresponding to the exercise of those duties.
“His conviction did not give rise to any communication from the Greek authorities to the Parliament concerning the withdrawal of his mandate,” the court said.
The Luxembourg-based court was ruling on a case taken by three citizens – Luisa Izuzquiza, Arne Semsrott and Stefan Wehrmeyer – who had unsuccessfully requested access to documents related to the allowances and expenses granted to Lagos from the European Parliament.
The three citizens sought to establish whether the sums paid to Lagos, including those relating to his parliamentary assistance expenses, had contributed, directly or indirectly, to the financing or perpetuation of criminal or unlawful activities.
However, the European Parliament claimed it could not release the information on the grounds that it was personal data.
In its ruling, the court said that “in the present case, even if the legitimate interest in protecting the privacy and integrity of the individual is affected, priority must be given to the public’s right of access to the institutions’ documents.
“The request is intended to facilitate enhanced public scrutiny and accountability with regard to Mr Lagos’ access to public funds and to contribute to the transparency of information relating to the sums paid by the Parliament to Mr Lagos and the expenses incurred by him and by his assistants, given the exceptional circumstances giving rise to the present case.”
Izuzquiza, one of the three who took the case, told Euronews that Lagos had access to more than €100,000 in funds in the seven-month period between conviction and the European Parliament agreeing to lift his immunity.
“It’s really alarming that public money was being made available to a convicted criminal and yet we could have no information,” Izuzquiza, who is a member of the activist group FragDenStaat, said.
Shortly after his election as a Golden Dawn MEP, Lagos quit the group and formed a new entity called National Popular Consciousness.
