The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, did not break any rules regarding the gifts received and she does not keep any gifts, the representatives of the press service of the EU legislature reported, according to Agerpres.

The clarification comes after international press agencies reported on Thursday that Roberta Metsola belatedly declared the list of gifts received and official visits paid by third parties since taking office.

„All the gifts received by the presidents of the European Parliament are always received in the name of the institution, never in their personal name. These are not gifts for deputies, but protocol gifts, most of them being the result of an exchange of protocol gifts with countries or with institutions following an existing protocol practice”, the spokespersons of the EP explain in a reaction sent to Agerpres.

„There are no ‘undeclared gifts’, all gifts made to the institution and received by the president on behalf of the institution have been declared internally and are kept by the institution, not by the president.

Some protocol gifts received by the president on behalf of the institution are regularly displayed to visitors at Strasbourg and joins the artistic collection of the institution. The unprecedented transparency regarding the public declaration of institutional gifts initiated by President Metsola aims to improve the existing practice regarding these institutional gifts”, explains the press service of the Community Legislature.

Roberta Metsola said last week that she had received 142 gifts and participated in five official visits paid for by third parties since she took office a year ago, but she did so after exceeding the deadline set by the European institution’s internal procedures , which is 30 consecutive days of the month during which a member of the EP made a trip paid for by third parties or received gifts from third parties, EFE reported.

Agerpres