Follow-up questions to the EU Parliament President on #mepblock

Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament

This Monday, I received a reply from the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, where he confirmed that a decision to block certain emails from citizens to members of the parliament was taken on March 7, and said that this decision was ”justified”.

Since I strongly disagree with the President’s position on this, I have now sent the following letter asking for some clarifications:

Dear President Schulz,

Thank you for your letter dated March 28, and delivered on April 8, where you defend blocking emails sent by citizens to Members of the European Parliament, and say that the intervention by the technical services was ”justified”.

I would be very grateful if you could clarify the following points in relation to this policy:

Who has the authority to decide which emails from citizens get blocked, and how is such authority derived from a mandate by the Parliament?
What instructions from the President or otherwise exists for the filtering of email communication?
Do you think it is acceptable that communication from citizens is blocked without the Members even being notified of the fact that a filter has been installed?

Best regards,

Christian Engström MEP