The Diplomat
Roberta Metsola, the President of the European Parliament, yesterday announced a 30-day suspension of parliamentary activity and allowances for PSOE MEP Monica Gonzalez for “psychological harassment” of three of her parliamentary assistants.
The punishment is the result of the conclusions of the MEP’s advisory committee responsible for examining complaints about harassment between parliamentary staff and MEPs, which considers that the treatment of the Socialist politician towards three members of her team “constituted psychological harassment”, as Metsola explained at the start of the day’s plenary session in Strasbourg (France).
Specifically, Metsola explained that the sanction entails the suspension of González’s parliamentary activity for one month -although this will not affect her right to vote- as well as the loss of her daily allowance for the same period, which in practice means that she will no longer receive more than 10,000 euros, at a rate of 338 euros per day in per diems, reports Europa Press.
The sanction, which the MEP can appeal, adds up to a punishment of five days for the harassment of one member of her team, fifteen days for her behaviour towards a second and ten days for the case of a third.
Asked about this at a press conference, the leader of the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group in the European Parliament, Iratxe García, said that the group has “absolute respect” for the sanction set by Metsola and assured that “the same sanction” will be applied within the group itself.
She said she was not speaking as the head of the Spanish Socialist delegation but as the head of the European delegation. She said that the Social Democrat group “has only just heard the news” when the President of the European Parliament announced it in plenary, so she does not yet know the details of the case or the analysis of the committee that has examined the matter.
