Equal treatment
In a separate lawsuit filed mid-July, the Patriots accused the Parliament of bias and lack of impartiality after it ruled the party had misspent funds in a campaign in Czechia.
The Parliament’s Bureau, composed of MEPs and tasked with taking decisions on administrative issues, ruled the Patriots should pay for that campaign with their own money and give back the EU funds spent on it, which came to €228,000.
The decision violated “the principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination, as it deemed similar campaigns by other parties to be reimbursable,” the Patriot’s case document, seen by POLITICO, read.
They also argue that the decision was not impartial, as the Bureau is composed mostly of center-right, liberal and left-wing lawmakers, with no far-right MEPs from the Patriots present to defend the case.
On top of that, they contend the Parliament violated their rights to defense as it censored big chunks of the letter the Patriots had sent to the bureau to defend themselves.
In the first version of the letter, the Patriots compared their campaign with that of another EU party. In the letter that the administration circulated in the bureau, the justification was redacted.
