Roemeense extreem-rechtse EP-leden worden mogelijk geen lid parlement (en)

EUOBSERVER/BRUSSELS – Romania's two newly elected right-wing extremist MEPs may not take up their seats in the EU assembly, as one has been ordered by court not to leave the country and the other one wants to show "solidarity" with his colleague.

A court in Bucharest ruled on Tuesday that newly elected MEP George "Gigi" Becali, a millionaire football-club owner known for his burlesque TV appearances, is not allowed to leave the country as he is charged with ordering his bodyguards to capture and threaten three men who tried to steal his car.

The court had earlier agreed to release Mr Becali from pre-trial detention under electoral rules which guaranteed his freedom during the run-up to last weekend's European Parliament election.

He is also under investigation in a separate case for trying to bribe a football team playing against his club's main rival to the tune of €1.6 million.

Mr Becali, who calls himself "ruler" and has adorned his "palace" with golden ornaments, said he was determined to take up his seat in Strasbourg, dismissing the trial as "circus". He also said he would use his private jet to travel to the sessions of the European Parliament in order not to waste any time at airports.

Yet his MEP mandate might be put on hold by the parliament's legal affairs committee until the case is solved.

Ultra-nationalist party leader Corneliu Vadim Tudor, a former Communist who never hid his sympathy for dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, immediately sided with his colleague and said he would also give up his seat as a sign of solidarity.

"It's a new harassment by Romania's corrupt justice system (...) Gigi Becali is no ordinary man, but a member of the European Parliament. I will not send someone else, I won't go myself, as a true comrade," he said.

Mr Tudor was Mr Becali's political rival until April, when he included Mr Becali on the list for EU elections. Back then, television channels made huge ratings covering the arrest of the millionaire.

His party, called "Greater Romania," won over eight percent of the vote on Sunday. The party briefly held five MEPs in 2007, when Romania joined the EU and its former observers turned into full MEPs.

The presence of the five Romanians led to the formation of an extreme right-wing group called Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty in the EU assembly. But it fell apart just a few months later when Mr Tudor got into a war of words with Alessandra Mussolini, the grand-daughter of the fascist Il Duce.

In November 2007, when Romania held its first elections to the EU parliament, Greater Romania party did not make the five percent threshold.