Status: 02/15/2022 10:02 a.m
With a large majority, the EU Parliament has withdrawn the parliamentary immunity of the MEP and former AfD boss Meuthen. He is now threatened with investigations into a donation scandal.
The EU Parliament has withdrawn the parliamentary immunity of the non-attached MEP and former AfD chairman Jörg Meuthen. The MEPs voted in favor of this step with a large majority, according to a report by the EU parliament.
The Berlin public prosecutor’s office had previously requested the waiver of immunity “in order to initiate criminal proceedings,” it said. Now that the decision has been made to revoke the law, there is nothing formally standing in the way of criminal investigations against Meuthen.
Investigations into a donation scandal
The background is the AfD donation affair, in which a Swiss PR company supported Meuthen in the 2016 state election campaign in Baden-Württemberg. As the then federal spokesman for the AfD, Meuthen is said to have “allegedly” not clearly stated the services of the PR company in the amount of around 90,000 euros in the annual report for 2016 to the Bundestag, according to the EU report. At the time, the Bundestag considered this to be a forbidden acceptance of anonymous donations and imposed a fine of 269,400 euros on the AfD.
According to the EU Parliament, Meuthen is also suspected of having “provided incorrect or incomplete information” in statements for the years 2017 and 2018.
Meuthen himself voted for repeal
Meuthen stated that he himself voted to have his immunity lifted. In a personal statement, he said that the annulment would not have been necessary “because I had already promised the Berlin public prosecutor’s office full and unconditional cooperation last spring”. He is more willing to do that. He was convinced that all suspicions against him would prove to be “unfounded and unfounded”.
Meuthen has been a member of the European Parliament since November 2017 and has therefore previously been protected from investigations by the Berlin public prosecutor. At the end of January, Meuthen announced his exit from the AfD. Last week he also left the right-wing populist group Identity and Democracy in the European Parliament.