Several women working in the EU institutions have spoken out about alleged inappropriate and illegal behaviour in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
So far, 54 women and two men working in the EU bubble have come forward and reported allegations to media outlets in Brussels and France.
Allegations include EU work contracts being offered in exchange for sexual favours, young women being sent to bars and dinners to exchange sexual favours for help on legislative files, an MEP assistant asked to book prostitutes for their boss and men bullied then sent on paid leave.
Le Figaro reports the case of a French MEP’s assistant who claims to have collected up to 50 allegations including one about “a political adviser who sent me in the middle of the night photos of me, taken without my knowledge.”
The Sunday Times in the UK, meanwhile, reports having a text message sent by Yves Cochet, a former French environment minister and Green party MEP, to the 25-year-old female assistant of another member. Cochet, 71, reportedly chides her for rejecting a dinner invitation, saying he wants to share her “passions, dreams and fantasies.”
Another young female employee in Parliament, one of a dozen junior female staffers interviewed, claims she was sexually harassed in a lift by a 60-year-old MEP.
She said that after entering a lift alone with her he started touching her, whispering indecently in her ear.
“He was stroking my hair, then my neck, going down my back. I just froze, I was petrified,” she told the paper.
“I told my colleague, who said I should report him, but in the end I didn’t. I was afraid of losing my job, of facing the embarrassment and ruining my career.”
The harasser, a married father of two, remains an MEP, it is claimed.
Other stories told to the paper included a senior MEP masturbating in front of a much younger staffer.
During the Strasbourg plenary this week, MEPs were due to discuss actions taken in the EU to combat sexual harassment and abuses in the wake of the revelations in the US film industry and the worldwide #Me Too campaign.
Responding to the claims, the Greens/EFA group has now urged women who have suffered similar experiences, including reports of sexual harassment in the European Parliament, to report them to the authorities.
Terry Reintke, who is the Greens/EFA group coordinator on Parliament’s women’s rights and gender equality committee, said, “No woman should ever have to put up with sexual harassment in the work place. This is a terrible abuse of power and we give our full support to the women who have taken the brave step to go public with their experiences.”
She added, “I would like to encourage all women who have been affected to contact the parliament’s anti-harassment committee so that action can be taken to drive sexual harassment out of the European Parliament.”
Her comments are echoed by her Austrian colleague Monika Vana, who said, “Every case of sexual harassment needs to be investigated, no matter who is involved. These reports must serve as a wake-up call that the EU institutions’ approach to gender equality is falling short.
“Not only does the EU currently lack an equality strategy but other key women’s policy milestones have not been implemented, such as quotas for supervisory boards. If the European Union is serious about equality, it needs to ensure its own institutions are doing a much better job.”