73 Members of the European Parliament from 20 European Union countries signed an open letter to the European Commission regarding delays and the poor quality of the Commission’s responses to MEPs’ questions. The appeal was initiated by MEP Piotr Müller. The signatories included representatives from nearly all political groups in the European Parliament—ranging from the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and the European People’s Party (EPP) to the Socialists and Democrats (S&D).
The signatories of the letter, addressed to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, expressed concern over the growing problem of the Commission’s untimely and vague responses to official questions from MEPs. “The European Parliament, as the representative of the Union’s citizens, has the right to expect a reliable, timely, and substantive response to the questions we submit to the Commission on their behalf,” the letter states.
The authors of the letter noted that, in accordance with Article 230 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the Commission is required to respond to MEPs’ questions “within a reasonable time”—a period of six weeks is generally accepted. However, as the MEPs note, in practice, responses often arrive several months late—or not at all.
The author of the letter also points out the increasingly low substantive quality of the responses, which often do not address the content of the questions asked and resemble the Commission’s general press releases. The letter emphasizes: “We are increasingly faced with vague responses that repeat the Commission’s public statements, which add nothing new and contain no reference to the specific questions raised in the parliamentary question.” According to Piotr Müller, this practice poses a threat to the transparency of EU institutions’ operations and erodes citizens’ trust in the EU’s legislative process. “It cannot be the case that MEPs’ questions are treated as a bureaucratic formality. This is one of the key mechanisms of democratic oversight—and it must be taken seriously,” the MEP emphasizes.
At the end of the letter, the MEPs call on Ursula von der Leyen to “take urgent corrective action—both to restore timeliness and to ensure that the substance of the responses provided is adequate.”
The letter has garnered broad support—representatives from the EPP, S&D, PfE, ESN, The Left, and non-affiliated MEPs have joined the ECR’s initiative. “This shows that the issue transcends party lines and concerns the fundamental principles governing the operation of EU institutions,” Müller commented.
