Jelinčič denies having been expelled from CoE, but he’s referring to the wrong document

14 members were banned from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

4. julij 2018 ob 21.15 • Ljubljana - MMC RTV SLO

By pointing to a document published several months ago, MP Zmago Jelinčič tried to prove that the Council of Europe had not expelled him. Foto: BoBo

SNS leader and MP Zmago Jelinčič has tried to prove that the Council of Europe (CoE) had not expelled him, but it appears that he has been referring to an old document. Jelinčič maintains that the scandal surrounding his expulsion from the Council of Europe is an attempt by “the left” to discredit him.

Last week, a total of 14 members were banned from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) for life after it transpired that they had been receiving bribes and gifts from the Azerbaijani government. One of those members was MP Zmago Jelinčič.
Jelinčič, who was recently appointment as the temporary vice chair of the parliamentary Foreign Policy Committee, attempted to clarify that he had not been expelled from the Council of Europe, but he failed to answer some key questions in his attempt to do so. He dismissed reports of his expulsion from the Council of Europe as a “leftist media campaign”, and tried to prove that he has not been expelled from the Council of Europe by pointing to a document published several months ago.

“I’ve never been expelled from the Council of Europe and I haven’t been notified of my expulsion either. The Council of Europe just said that I failed to send them a written statement. But they never asked me to send them one,” said Jelinčič, adding that perhaps the Council of Europe did send Parliament a request for the submission of a written statement. But he stressed that he never received it because he did not serve as a Member of Parliament between 2011 and 2018.

However, on 29 June the Council of Europe published a report on its website saying that Jelinčič “had received EUR 25,000 in July 2012 from one of the UK companies involved in the “Laundromat” case therefore creating the suspicion that he acted in favour of Azerbaijan on the occasion of election observations”.

The report, moreover, says that Jelinčič “failed to comply with the Investigation Body’s requests for the submission of a written statement. Mr Jelinčič Plemeniti did not reply to the letter sent by the Committee chairperson and did not provide any comments.” The Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs of the Council of Europe found that since “there has been a serious violation of the ethical rules of the Parliamentary Assembly; it decided that Mr Jelinčič Plemeniti shall be deprived of the right to access to the Council of Europe and the Parliamentary Assembly premises for life”.