On the request for waiver of the immunity of Petr Bystron

(2024/2047(IMM))

The European Parliament,

–having regard to the request for waiver of the immunity of Petr Bystron, received by letter dated 27 August 2024 from the German Federal Ministry of Justice, transmitting a request of 23 July 2024 from the Munich Public Prosecutor, in connection with criminal proceedings underway at the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office, and announced in plenary on 16 September 2024,

–having heard Petr Bystron on 13 February 2025, in accordance with Rule 9(6) of its Rules of Procedure, and having regard to the documents submitted by him,

–having regard to Articles 8 and 9 of Protocol No 7 on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Union and to Article 6(2) of the Act of 20 September 1976 concerning the election of the Members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage,

–having regard to the judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 21 October 2008, 19 March 2010, 6 September 2011, 17 January 2013, 19 December 2019 and 5 July 2023,

–having regard to Article 46 of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany,

–having regard to Rule 5(2), Rule 6(1) and Rule 9 of its Rules of Procedure,

–having regard to the report of the Committee on Legal Affairs (A10-0077/2025),

A.whereas the Munich Public Prosecutor has requested the waiver of the parliamentary immunity of Petr Bystron, Member of the European Parliament, in connection with the charges brought against him pursuant to Article 108(1), Article 261(1)(2), Article 261(7), Article 263(1) and Article 263(3)(1) of the German Criminal Code, Article 370(1) of the German General Tax Code and Article 53 of the German Criminal Code, concerning alleged offences of at least six counts of passive corruption, money laundering and fraud, and at least five counts of tax evasion;

B.whereas the request for waiver of immunity states that, from an unspecified time in 2020, Peter Bystron may, inter alia, have received cash payments in person or received cryptocurrency transfers from the operator of the pro-Russian website ‘Voice of Europe’ in return for his commitment to speak and vote, as a member of the national parliament, in the interests of the Russian Government; whereas Peter Bystron reportedly deposited considerable sums in an ATM on 17 and 20 March 2023 into an account belonging to the company of which he is the sole shareholder and manager; whereas on 20 March 2023, he then withdrew the same amount in denominations of EUR 200 from an ATM of the same bank; whereas, in response to a request from the bank, Petr Bystron provided no explanation as to the reason for these suspicious movements; whereas Petr Bystron also deposited several sums in July 2021, April 2022, September 2022, and in June and July 2023 from the alleged bribes he received in cash; whereas Petr Bystron reportedly tried to conceal the origin of the cash; whereas the Public Prosecutor has transaction records of all the accounts of Petr Bystron and the company, of which he is the sole shareholder and manager, from 2020 onwards; whereas this has reportedly made it possible to detect further cash payments and to conclude that bribes that he allegedly received at an earlier point in time did in fact exist;

C.whereas in several deliberations of the national parliament, of which Petr Bystron was a member at the time of the alleged facts, on Russia-related issues, he has, since 2022, reportedly voted in a manner clearly most favourable to the interests of the Russian Government and has given at least two speeches before the German Bundestag in which he defended a pro-Russian position;

D.whereas Petr Bystron, who was entitled, under the German Law on Members of Parliament, to a flat-rate allowance intended, inter alia, to recruit staff, is said to have entered into an employment contract with his lawyer in October 2021 and to have also agreed to five amendments to that contract, each altering the weekly working hours and monthly salary of his lawyer; whereas the flat-rate allowance may be used only if the intended purpose or the activities concerned have a sufficient connection with the exercise of the mandate; whereas the work carried out under that contract did not relate to the exercise of the parliamentary mandate or the work expected was not carried out, but remuneration was paid nonetheless as a result of having misled the staff member in charge of authorising the payment; whereas this remuneration is said to have led the Federal Republic of Germany to incur a loss in the amount of EUR 97 400.00;

E.whereas in the financial years 2017 to 2021, Petr Bystron, through the tax advisor of the company of which he is the sole shareholder and manager, is said to have submitted incorrect VAT returns to the Munich tax authorities, containing private expenditure that has no connection with that company’s commercial activity; whereas, as a result of this incorrect information on the VAT returns, an undue refund of VAT totalling EUR 9 949.17 was reportedly paid;

F.whereas Petr Bystron was elected to the European Parliament in the European elections in 2024 in Germany and was not a Member of the European Parliament at the time of the alleged offences;

G.whereas the alleged offences and the subsequent request for waiver of his immunity are not related to an opinion expressed or a vote cast by Petr Bystron in the performance of his duties within the meaning of Article 8 of Protocol No 7 on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Union;

H.whereas Article 9, first paragraph, point (a) of Protocol No 7 on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Union provides that Members of the European Parliament enjoy, in the territory of their own State, the immunities accorded to members of their parliament;

I.whereas Article 46(2), (3) and (4) of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany provides that:

‘(2) A Member may not be called to account or arrested for a punishable offence without permission of the Bundestag unless he is apprehended while committing the offence or in the course of the following day.

(3)The permission of the Bundestag shall also be required for any other restriction of a Member’s freedom of the person or for the initiation of proceedings against a Member under Article 18.

(4)Any criminal proceedings or any proceedings under Article 18 against a Member and any detention or other restriction of the freedom of his person shall be suspended at the demand of the Bundestag’;

J.whereas the purpose of parliamentary immunity is to protect Parliament and its Members from legal proceedings in relation to activities that are carried out in the performance of parliamentary duties and that cannot be separated from those duties;

K.whereas in accordance with Rule 5(2) of the Rules of Procedure, parliamentary immunity is not a personal privilege of the Member but a guarantee of the independence of Parliament as a whole and of its Members;

L.whereas, in this case, Parliament found no evidence of fumus persecutionis, which is to say factual elements indicating that the intention underlying the legal proceedings in question is to undermine the Member’s political activity in his capacity as a Member of the European Parliament;

M.whereas Parliament cannot assume the role of a court and whereas, in a waiver of immunity procedure, a Member cannot be regarded as a defendant;

1.Decides to waive the immunity of Petr Bystron;

2.Instructs its President to forward this decision and the report of its committee responsible immediately to the competent authority of the Federal Republic of Germany and to Petr Bystron.