EFDD itself will decide how to discipline its staff member behind Red Dalia, EP says

“We’re not the police or we’re not the headmaster of anybody, its the political group that has to decide by themselves what they want to do with their staff member,” Schulz’s spokesman Armin Machmer told BNS.

He said that at a meeting with heads of EP political groups, EFDD leader Nigel Farage spoke about measures to be taken against the staff member who placed the book Red Dalia into mail-boxes of all EP members.

“We cannot control the content, it is impossible to control the content in the mail-boxes. But of course, if unauthorised people distribute stuff, that is against the rules,” Machmer emphasized.

He noted that an investigation revealed that “somebody in the EFDD group staff” had distributed the books, while the group leader said he had nothing to do with it.

Lithuanian Liberal MEP Antanas Guoga said that EP security had identified a member of the EFDD office, a Russian citizen and a Moscow-born Polish citizen as the ones who put English-language editions of the book by Lithuanian journalist Rūta Janutienė into MEPs’ mail-boxes.

Lithuanian MEPs Rolandas Paksas and Valentinas Mazuronis, both members of the EFDD group, have also distanced themselves from the incident. Janutienė maintains that her book was translated into English without her authorisation.