A parliamentary assistant was fired after reporting the MEP he worked for, accusing him of fraud and harassment. The European Parliament was ordered to pay compensation for failing to comply with its own rules on whistleblower protection. The European Court of Justice criticised the European Parliament for disclosing the whistleblower’s status without authorisation, thus exposing him to the high possibility, which in fact occurred, of being fired by the politician who employed him.
The verdict
It was the General Court, one of the EU judicial institutions that make up the Court of Justice, that decided that the Chamber of Strasbourg and Brussels will have to pay 10 thousand euros to the coffers of the former parliamentary assistant. The names of the victim and the MEP in question are not known.
The practice of dismissals
The assistant at the centre of this affair was first transferred to work for another MEP and then permanently fired. “The Parliament’s rules on whistleblowers are among the weakest in comparison to other EU institutions,” accused Nick Aiossa, director of Transparency International EU, an NGO that works on transparency in European institutions. “Every single assistant who has made a tip-off has been fired,” he denounced.
Failure to protect assistants
“The European Parliament has violated certain protection rules relating to the status of a parliamentary assistant as a whistleblower,” the court explained in a press release. The Parliament, for its part, has not yet expressed its opinion on a possible appeal, stating that it intends to conduct an analysis of the rules applicable in this case. In reality, the rules on the protection of whistleblowers are clear and revised just a year ago, in November 2023, including accredited parliamentary assistants among the whistleblowers to be protected.
This means that if Parliament had revealed the identity of the complainant, it would have violated its own rules. The problem remains linked to the fact that the work of assistants is strictly linked to the individual will of the MPs, as they are dependent on them, therefore it is not up to Parliament to decide on hiring and firing.
