La eurodiputada de Ciudadanos, Soraya Rodríguez, en representación de la delegación del partido en la Eurocámara, ha enviado una carta formal al presidente del Parlamento Europeo, David Sassoli, pidiéndole explicaciones ante la arbitrariedad de los criterios observados para excepcionar la Comisión extraordinaria de Medio Ambiente (ENVI) con motivo de la visita de Greta Thunberg de las medidas de restricción adoptadas en el Hemiciclo por el coronavirus.

Desde el pasado lunes, el presidente de la Eurocámara decidió suspender todas las visitas y eventos en que participaran personas ajenas a la institución como medida de prevención de posibles contagios del virus. No obstante, Rodríguez ha observado que “las razones que justifican la restricción de acceso al Parlamento durante las próximas tres semanas, se obviaron, exclusivamente, entre la 13h y las 14.30h de ayer cuando se produjo una desmesurada concentración de personas en la Comisión ENVI con motivo de la presencia de Thunberg”.

“No se ha informado debidamente por qué, por decisión de la presidencia, se ha mantenido solo esta reunión en particular”, ha lamentado la eurodiputada, que considera que “lo peor que puede existir en la gestión de una crisis es que las decisiones adoptadas resulten incomprensibles para una amplia mayoría de la sociedad”. “Es la imagen del parlamento la que resulta dañada como consecuencia de estas decisiones arbitrarias”, ha concluido Rodríguez.

 

Se adjunta carta a continuación:

Dear Mr. President,

On Monday 2nd of March, a number of urgent precautionary measures were taken to limit the spread of the Coronavirus to protect the health of Members and Staff of the European Parliament. As a result, all events and visits to the premises of the Parliament were cancelled. In your decision it is stated that “persons other than Members of staff of Parliament who are seeking access to Parliament’s premises on account of the cancelled events and visits shall be denied access” (CP D(2020)9024, Art. 1.2).

Therefore all events and meetings were effectively cancelled or rescheduled to the coming months. Several of them were highly relevant, such as the Inter-parliamentary FEMM Committee Meeting on the occasion of the International Women’s Day due to be held on 5th of March.

Despite this decision, the Extraordinary Meeting of the ENVI Committee was maintained due to the external visit of Miss Greta Thunberg. As expected, this meeting was attended yesterday by a large number of people -including a wide range of media representatives-, which resulted in a dense crowd of people, far beyond the number of members or staff of the competent committee.

As you very well know, the worst thing that may exist in the management of a public health crisis, it is to give the impression that the decisions taken are arbitrary to a large majority of society. Yesterday, the precautionary measures to restrict the access to the Parliament seemed to have disappeared from 13:00 to 14:30, coinciding with the Extraordinary Meeting of the Committee of Environment, and were afterwards reintroduced.  

We are sure that all decisions made in the Presidency are fully justified. Nevertheless, we also believe that such decisions have not been properly communicated to Members and staff of this Parliament, causing discontent among us. As reflected in the media, the reputation of the Parliament has been compromised due to these decisions.

Dear Mr. President, we would like to kindly request you, as the highest representative of this institution, to kindly explain to us the criteria put in place for waiving entry ban for external visitors at the European Parliament’s premises.

Thank you,

Respectfully yours,

 

Soraya Rodríguez Ramos

Luis Garicano Gabilondo

Maite Pagazaurtundúa Ruiz

José Ramón Bauzá Díaz

Jordi Cañas Pérez

Susana Solís Pérez

Adrián Vázquez Lázara