Calls for Bulgarian MEP to be sanctioned after Nazi salute in EU parliament

euronews.com:

A Bulgarian MEP could be sanctioned after making what appears to be the Nazi salute in the European Parliament on Wednesday.

Angel Dzhambazki, of the Eurosceptic ECR group, made the gesture after speaking in a debate on the rule of law in Poland and Hungary following a ruling from the European Court of Justice (CJEU) that the bloc's conditionality mechanism over EU funds is lawful.

The instrument would allow the Commission to withhold EU money to member states that are found to be violating the bloc's core values including rule of law, judicial independence, and press freedom. The CJEU's ruling opens the door for the Commission to trigger the mechanism over Hungary and Poland, which a majority of MEPs have been calling for in recent months.

Dzhambazki, of Bulgaria's nationalist VMRO party, described the ruling as an "abomination" on Twitter and told the hemicycle in Strasbourg during the debate: "We will never allow you to tell us what to say and what to do. Long live Bulgaria, Hungary, Orban, Fidesz and the Europe of nation-states."

The EU institution's President, Roberta Metsola, reacted on Twitter, writing that "a fascist salute in the European parliament is unacceptable to me — always and everywhere."

"It offends me and everyone else in Europe. We stand for the opposite. We are the House of democracy.

"That gesture is from the darkest chapter of our history and must be left there," she added.

The vice-president of the European Parliament, Pina Picierno of Italy, who was leading the debate at the time, said she "condemned what had happened and asked for this ignoble and unacceptable gesture to be sanctioned."

The European Parliament's rules of procedure state that MEPs "shall refrain from any inappropriate behaviour" and