Diana comments on Sunday Times 'Laws for Cash' article
Commenting on the allegations made by the Sunday Times today against three MEPs, Vice-President Diana Wallis said:
"The allegations made by the Sunday Times are serious and the European Parliament takes them seriously. As the Vice President responsible for Transparency I have asked that the European Parliament launch an immediate and robust inquiry into these allegations to establish the facts in full. Material from the Sunday Times investigation is being transmitted to the Parliament to be carefully reviewed.
"Depending on the findings, the European Parliament will act quickly to take all the necessary steps. The European Parliament cannot accept wrongdoing of the nature alleged by the paper and will do all that is required to ensure this matter is dealt with swiftly and fairly.
"In developing a single lobbying register to apply both to European Parliament and the European Commission, the two European institutions have already established a far more transparent system for lobbying than is seen in many national parliaments, and indeed the Parliament has always been at the forefront of calls to make the Register mandatory. Maybe these calls will now be taken seriously.
"In fact if these ' lobbyists ' had been on the Transparency Register, as they should have been, and we encourage MEPs only to deal with such properly registered lobbies, they too would now be under investigation and being struck off from lobbying in Brussels - probably for good."