EU Parliament accused of overreach after shielding top lawmakers from prosecutors

STRASBOURG — The European Parliament is poised on Tuesday to shield a senior German lawmaker from investigation, reigniting allegations that MEPs are abusing parliamentary immunity to protect their own.

The full Parliament will vote on whether to back a decision by the Legal Affairs Committee (JURI), which agreed on May 2 not to lift the immunity of Angelika Niebler, the head of the Christian Social Union delegation in the European People’s Party. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office and a German prosecutor wanted Niebler’s immunity lifted as part of an investigation into alleged misuse of EU funds.

“The allegations are unfounded. I wish that the facts of the matter are clarified as quickly and completely as possible,” Niebler told POLITICO in early November, adding “I will fully support this investigation.”

The debate over Niebler’s immunity reveals the tensions between the Parliament and prosecutors, including EPPO, over who gets to decide whether lawmakers should be investigated.

If the full Parliament backs the JURI decision — which seems likely given Niebler is a member of the EPP, the Parliament’s largest political group — it would prevent the prosecutors from pursuing certain investigative steps, including questioning her, searching her home or bringing her before a court. Parliamentary immunity is a legal safeguard that protects MEPs from political persecution.

According to the Parliament’s rulebook, reviewed by POLITICO, the JURI committee must lift the immunity of an MEP when requested to do so unless the case concerns tasks considered part of a parliamentarian’s daily work — such as statements and votes — or appears politically motivated.

But in two recent cases, transparency campaigners and some MEPs alleged the committee has been going further — scrutinizing the strength of prosecutors’ evidence to determine whether lifting an MEP’s immunity is justified while also weighing the potential reputational damage to the lawmaker involved.

“EPPO should have the chance to look into the allegations and carry out a proper investigation,” said The Left co-chair Martin Schirdewan. “This is just basic democratic scrutiny and transparency.”

Nick Aïossa, director at Transparency International EU, said: “MEPs are rapidly delegitimizing a crucial democratic safeguard by blatantly politicizing it.”

“Legal affairs committee members have decided to essentially usurp the job of EPPO in carrying out their own investigation and evaluation of the evidence,” he said.

Axel Voss, the EPP’s coordinator in the legal affairs committee, told POLITICO that it is “precisely the role of the Committee to identify allegations that are made on fabricated, irrelevant grounds with the aim of causing political harm to Members of the European Parliament.”

In the case of Niebler, Voss said, “following a thorough examination of the allegations, a hearing of the accused and extensive discussion, the members of the Committee concluded by a large majority (16:3:3) that this is indeed such a case.”

In June 2025, Parliament President Roberta Metsola said she would take steps to shield lawmakers from being named publicly during criminal investigations. | Ronald Wittek/EPA

“The procedure and decision are completely in line with how JURI previously handled similar cases,” Voss said.

‘Not a court’

Niebler has been accused by EPPO of hiring assistants to chauffeur her from her hometown of Munich to Brussels and Strasbourg, as well as to private and business appointments not linked to her work as an MEP.

In comments to Der Spiegel that Niebler shared with POLITICO, she said it is “untrue that I used Parliament-funded assistants as drivers for the private appointments.”

A report on the case by the JURI committee, seen by POLITICO, says a lack of detailed allegations and the timing of the complaint “raise[s] concerns that the intention behind the proceedings may have been to damage the reputation of Angelika Niebler.”

Lawmakers on the legal affairs committee say the accuser stood to gain Niebler’s seat if she were dismissed, which means there is a risk of political persecution.

The chair of the legal affairs committee, Bulgarian MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk, did not reply to a request for comment.

Last December, the legal affairs committee refused to lift the immunity of Italian socialist MEP Elisabetta Gualmini as part of the Qatargate probe, saying Belgian prosecutors had failed to provide enough evidence to justify an investigation. In that case, an EPP lawmaker said Belgian authorities can be “a bit exaggerated.” Gualmini denied wrongdoing.

The two cases have generated backlash within the Parliament’s ranks.

“We are not a court,” said one lawmaker, granted anonymity to speak about the confidential immunity process, as were others quoted in this article. “We should not presume we have something to say about the accusation itself because it’s up to the national authorities to do their work, and we should not stand in the way of a fair process and a thorough investigation.”

‘Bad collaboration’

In June 2025, Parliament President Roberta Metsola said she would take steps to shield lawmakers from being named publicly during criminal investigations, following criticism that their reputations were being dragged through the mud.

In March, Belgian authorities wrongly accused MEP Daniel Attard of receiving payments from Chinese bank accounts as part of a corruption probe connected to Chinese firm Huawei after mixing him up with a businessman of the same name.

“This underlines the importance of due process and of verifying facts carefully before reputations are put on the line,” the lawmaker said.

There was anger in the Parliament last May when Belgian prosecutors named Giusi Princi as a suspect in the same investigation and requested the lifting of her immunity, only to withdraw the request hours later after realizing she was not even an MEP at the time of the alleged offenses.

Princi said at the time she was “shocked at having been involved on the basis of objectively non-existent elements.”

“The committee is quite pissed,” said another lawmaker. “There is a bad collaboration between the European Parliament and the prosecutor’s office.”

Lawmakers and officials said Parliament should reform how it deals with requests to waive immunity, including its policies on publicly naming MEPs targeted by prosecutors, what information it shares with investigators before immunity has to be lifted, and how it determines whether immunity should be waived.