MEP Borghezio assaulted and detained at Bilderberg meeting

Question for written answer P-006156/2011

to the Commission

Rule 117

Lorenzo Fontana (EFD)

Subject: MEP Mario Borghezio assaulted and detained at the annual meeting of the Bilderberg Club in the performance of his duties

Mr Mario Borghezio, MEP, and his parliamentary assistant were brutally assaulted, forcibly ejected and physically wounded by members of the private police corps of the Bilderberg Club, whose members were meeting at the Suvretta House hotel in Saint Moritz. Mr Borghezio, who had gone there to ask if he could attend the meeting of the members of the association, openly produced his passport and his European Parliament Member's ID card which attested to his parliamentary privileges. Despite that, he was attacked and deprived of his personal freedom by the Swiss authorities, which also issued him with an order to leave the meeting premises and a ban on staying in the area until the Bilderberg Club had ended its meeting. In its annual meeting, the Bilderberg Club assembles the elite of the European and global business, political, industrial and financial worlds and discusses in secret a wide range of global, economic, military and political issues relating to Europe. It has among its members numerous government and EU representatives who are currently in office.

Can the Commission please clarify the following:

1. Does it consider such behaviour which, firstly, adversely affects a citizen's individual freedoms and secondly, the privileges of a Member of the European Parliament in the obvious performance of his duties, to be acceptable in the European legal area?

2. Does it consider the existence and aims of a clearly secret association such as the Bilderberg Club to be compatible with EU principles and legislation and does it not think it should launch an inquiry into this association, in the name of the principles of transparency which guide the EU?

3. Does it not agree that it might be appropriate to ascertain the presence in such an assembly of members and officials of the European Parliament, Commission, Council and European Central Bank? If so, is that presence compatible with the nature of their mandate and duties, the performance of which is bound by and subject to only the requirements of democratic transparency and the sole interest of EU citizens?