Far-right MEPs to pay back €500k in EU funds
July 3, 2018
European Parliament President Antonio Tajani has ordered a group of 35 far-right lawmakers to pay back more than half a million euros ($581,000) of taxpayer funds that the group spent on expensive champagne, dinners and Christmas presents.
Parliamentary auditors found that lawmakers from the Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF) group spent €478,000 in unjustified expenses in 2016.
This included more than 230 bottles of champagne, 110 Christmas presents at €100 each, a Christmas meal for 140 people that totaled more than €13,500, and an outing to an upscale Parisian restaurant that cost more than €440 per person.
Another set meal for two at a Paris restaurant, costing €401 per head, was reportedly a tete-a-tete between Marine Le Pen and Italian League leader Matteo Salvini, according to French weekly Le Canard Enchaine.
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The ENF group, which includes members of France's National Rally party, Austria's Freedom Party (FPÖ) and Italy's League, was also reprimanded in 2017 for €66,500 in unjustified expense spending.
The ENF is to reimburse the parliament using some of the €3.25 million it will receive in EU funds for 2018. The parliament has already frozen €600,000 to ensure it receives the payment.
Lawmakers from France's National Rally, formerly known as the National Front (FN), were subject to a separate audit in 2017 over abuse of funds by the party's parliamentary assistants.
amp/msh (AFP, dpa)