The European Parliament will hold a major vote on Tuesday to block a criminal investigation into a senior German politician. This upcoming vote sparked massive outrage across Europe. Critics accuse the lawmakers of abusing their parliamentary immunity to protect their friends from the police.
The controversy centers on Angelika Niebler. She leads the Christian Social Union delegation inside the European People’s Party. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office and a German prosecutor both want to investigate her for stealing taxpayer money. They claim Niebler misused thousands of euros in European Union funds by hiring assistants to act as her private chauffeurs. The prosecutors say these assistants drove her from Munich to Brussels and Strasbourg and took her to private appointments unrelated to her government job.
Niebler strongly denies these claims. She spoke to reporters in early November and called the allegations completely unfounded. She stated she never used government assistants as drivers for her private trips. She also claimed she wanted to clarify the facts as quickly as possible and promised to cooperate with the authorities.
Despite her promise to clear things up, her colleagues stepped in to shield her. The Legal Affairs Committee held a meeting on May 2 to review the prosecutors’ request. The committee members voted 16 to 3 to keep her immunity intact, with exactly 3 members abstaining. Because Niebler belongs to the largest political group in the parliament, the full parliament will almost certainly vote to approve the committee’s decision on Tuesday.
If the parliament votes to protect her, prosecutors hit a brick wall. The police cannot question her, search her home, or drag her into a courtroom. The parliament rulebook clearly states that the committee must remove immunity when the police request it. The only exception happens when the police target a politician for purely political reasons or attack them for doing their daily legislative work.
Axel Voss, a coordinator for the legal affairs committee, defended the decision to block the police. He argued the committee must stop people from filing fabricated claims just to cause political harm. The committee released a report stating the person who accused Niebler actually wanted to take over her seat in the parliament. They viewed the entire police investigation as a political hit job designed to ruin her reputation.
Transparency groups hate this excuse. Nick Aiossa, the director at Transparency International EU, blasted the committee members. He said they basically stole the prosecutors’ job by evaluating the criminal evidence themselves. Martin Schirdewan, a co-chair of The Left, demanded that prosecutors be given a fair chance to do their jobs. He called the situation a massive failure of basic democratic transparency.
This fight highlights a growing war between the European Parliament and police agencies. Lawmakers feel angry because prosecutors have made several embarrassing mistakes over the past 2 years. In March, Belgian authorities falsely accused lawmaker Daniel Attard of taking illegal payments from Chinese bank accounts. The police later admitted they mixed him up with a random businessman who happened to share the same name.
The police made another huge mistake last May. Belgian prosecutors publicly named Giusi Princi as a criminal suspect and demanded that the parliament lift her immunity. Just a few hours later, the prosecutors withdrew the request in total embarrassment. They realized Princi did not even work in parliament at the time the crimes occurred. Princi told the press she felt completely shocked that police dragged her name through the mud based on zero evidence.
Parliament President Roberta Metsola took action after these careless police errors. In June 2025, she promised to shield lawmakers from having their names released to the public during early criminal investigations. Many lawmakers fully support her plan. One anonymous politician complained that the parliament and the prosecutor’s office currently have a terrible working relationship.
Still, some politicians warn that the parliament is going too far by blocking investigations. One lawmaker reminded the committee that they do not run a court of law. This politician argued that national authorities must do their jobs, and lawmakers should never stand in the way of a fair legal process just to protect their friends.
The drama forces leaders to demand serious reforms. Officials want to completely change how the parliament handles immunity requests in the future. They want strict rules on how much evidence police must show before the parliament agrees to lift a shield. Until they write new rules, the tension between the politicians and the police will only get worse.
