ECR has condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin for invading Ukraine, and a majority of its members have been staunch supporters of sending military aid to Kyiv.
ECR’s leadership has been debating for months whether to kick Kartheiser out of the group over his pro-Russian stance.
“If he goes, I will submit a motion to have him removed from the group,” the co-chair of the ECR group, Patryk Jaki, told POLITICO.
“ECR, and especially PiS [Poland’s Law and Justice party], is the largest party in Europe that has consistently opposed the policy of ‘resets with Moscow’ for decades. This was the case with the Nord Stream projects and when all of Europe was engaging in ‘resets with Russia’ before the invasion of Ukraine,” said Jaki, who is affiliated with Law and Justice.
European Parliament spokesperson Delphine Colard said that members traveling to Moscow “do so in a personal capacity.”
In early May, coinciding with Putin’s “Victory Day” celebrations, Cypriot non-attached MEP Fidias Panayiotou visited Moscow with other EU lawmakers from Germany’s Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), Slovakia’s SMER and Czechia.
That caused a backlash from the Parliament president and the leaders of the main political groups, with the liberal Renew Europe president calling for an investigation into whether the lawmakers had used Parliament funds for the visit.
