S&D MEPs have urged the EPP Group and their leader Manfred Weber to drop proposals to hold a secret vote on new rules designed to make the Parliament’s work more transparent. The proposals are part of a report on an update to the European Parliament's rules of procedure.
S&D Group MEP and author of the report, Richard Corbett said:
“You couldn’t make it up: the centre right EPP Group in the European Parliament have called for a secret vote on new rules on transparency. Instead of admitting to citizens that they will vote against a proposal that MEPs should publish details of their meetings with lobbyists, they are using a little-known parliamentary procedure to force the vote to be held in secret.
“Manfred Weber, you want to be the next President of the European Commission, surely you can see that holding this vote in secret sends completely the wrong message to citizens? We urge you to drop this call, people deserve to know how their representatives are voting.
“We cannot allow this situation to happen again. We will back an amendment that would make it impossible for Groups to call for secret votes on matters of policy in the future. We cannot allow politicians to say one thing in public and then vote another way in secret.”
