The European Parliament decided to waive the immunity of Georgios Kyrtsos (EPP, EL).
As a reminder, the request for waiver of Georgios Kyrtsos' immunity, transmitted on 27 February 2018 by the Deputy Prosecutor General at the Supreme Court of the Hellenic Republic, concerns non-payment to his former employee of an Easter bonus of EUR 986.46 on 27 April 2016.
Parliament highlighted the following considerations: (i) the alleged offence clearly has no direct link with the office of Georgios Kyrtsos as a Member of the European Parliament but is instead connected to his former position as manager of two newspaper firms; (ii) the prosecution does not concern opinions expressed or votes cast in the performance of the duties of the Member of the European Parliament in question for the purposes of Article 8 of Protocol No 7 on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Union; (iii) there is no reason to suspect that the intention underlying criminal proceedings is to damage a Member’s political activity (fumus persecutionis).