The chairperson of the European Parliament’s budgetary control committee has denied that Labour MEP Alex Agius Saliba was treated unfairly during a committee hearing on Wednesday.

In a letter to European Parliament president David Sassoli, Monika Hohlmeier referred to a complaint filed against her by Socialists and Democrats president Iratxe Garcia Perez.

The complaint followed a meeting of the committee, known as CONT, during which Agius Saliba was told off as being “very impolite”, after he argued that the committee was discussing Malta’s use of EU funds for politically-motivated reasons. 

He clashed with Hohlmeier as he lambasted the discussion as a “partisan attack” that was being pushed forward by the European People’s Party, the PN's political grouping. Hohlmeier is an EPP MEP. 

CONT is tasked with delving into issues concerning the management of the EU budget. Agius Saliba is not a member of the committee and was only allowed to speak after Hohlmeier decided that he should be allowed to do so. 

But Garcia Perez claimed in her complaint that Hohlmeier “refused to allow Agius Saliba take over his five minutes allotted speaking time”.

In her letter to Sassoli (see pdf link below), Hohlmeier said she interrupted the MEP to keep his intervention to the agenda after he had been speaking for three minutes and 20 seconds.

Saliba then continued his speech for another minute and 29 seconds, when he was asked to conclude his statement which he did after another 34 seconds.

Following another intervention by a CONT member, Agius Saliba spoke again for another 31 seconds, bringing his net speaking time to more than five minutes and 30 seconds.

This, Hohlmeier said, was double the amount of time that had been used by CONT members.