MEP expelled from European Parliament chamber for shouting with muzzle on

Strasbourg (France), Jul 18 (EFE).- The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, expelled on Thursday from the institution’s hemicycle a far-right Romanian MEP who interrupted the session by shouting from her seat while wearing a muzzle, a religious image and a large garbage bag while accusing the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, of “killing people.”

MEP Diana Șoșoacă, a well-known anti-vaxxer from the Romanian AUR party, had already muzzled herself and shouted from her seat on several occasions before Metsola, who warned her that this was the third time she had disrupted the normal course of the session, urged her to leave the plenary.

“You killed people and I have the right to speak,” shouted the MEP, who resisted for several minutes the nearly ten ushers who tried to escort her out of the chamber.

Romanian far-right MEP Diana ?o?oaca holds religious images during the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on July 18, 2024. EFE/EPA/RONALD WITTEK

Șoșoacă blames Von der Leyen for the deaths recorded during Covid-19 and which she attributes to vaccines, which is why, she explained, she was carrying a large black plastic bag that she says is used in her country to store corpses and thus symbolize those who have died from the pandemic.

European daily Politico reported Wednesday that Șoșoacă, already known for being disruptive in the Romanian parliament, had said that as soon as she might, she would bring a priest to consecrate her offices because, like in her national parliament, “devils gather here.”

After being thrown out of the chamber, the MEP went to the door to a group of journalists and, wearing the same religious image and her interpretation headphones, protested that there was only one candidate for the presidency of the European Commission and said that “all Romanians say clearly that they do not want Ursula because she is a criminal.”

“Polarisation is at its highest level since the Cold War. I will say it bluntly: we will always defend freedom, but it is not the one who shouts the loudest and the one who shows the least respect who has the most power. It is respect for the rule of law, respect that unites us,” said Von der Leyen in her first reply.