“An important moment”

Tomorrow morning, the inaugural plenary session will take place in Strasbourg.

The plenary is composed of 108 MEPs, 54 Council representatives (two per Member State), 3 EU Commission eurocrats and 108 representatives from national parliaments.

The Parliament Magazine reveals the agenda of the talking shop:

“The agenda, seen by this site, includes presentations and discussions on the purpose and expectations of the conference, including European citizens’ and national panels.”

You may forgiven to have missed that this event would take place, but according to Bulgarian MEP Sergei Stanishev, the President of the Party of European Socialists, “this is an important moment; our political family understands that instinctively. We have an opportunity to embed what matters for our communities into Europe’s future.”

The wife of Sergei Stanishev was once awarded a €60,000 tender European Parliament cash, at least according to the EPP, so perhaps it is not a surprise to see this Bulgarian politician hailing the conference as “an important moment”.

Before, we have recalled the lack of transparency with regards to EP tendering for the “Conference on the Future of Europe”.

Will Sergei Stanishev’s environment once again be on the receiving end? We are not saying he will, but when tenders are not published on the website of the “Conference on the Future of Europe” itself, but only in some dark corner of the European Parliament’s website, there clearly is an increased risk for insiders to get their hands on all of that CoFoE cash.

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