WARSAW — Former European Parliament Vice President Ryszard Czarnecki loves going to work — he even uses a car, a motorcycle and even a semi-trailer to get from Poland to the legislature.
At least that’s what he claimed in his statement to the European Parliament about the €203,000 fee.
In 2020, he came under investigation for the first time by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), which questioned €100,000 in travel reimbursement he received between 2009 and 2018. He returned the money to parliament, closing the European case, but the case was handed over to Polish prosecutors, who did not understand the matter as well as their EU colleagues.
It has become easier to pursue him because he no longer enjoys parliamentary immunity after his defeat in the European Parliament elections this year.
Czarnecki, who was an MEP from 2004 to 2024 and one of the parliament’s vice-presidents, faces up to 15 years in prison on fraud charges.
Last month, Rafal Kawalec, a spokesman for the district prosecutor’s office in the eastern city of Zamosc, told Repubblica newspaper: “Recovering the debt will not solve the problem; at best, it can affect fines or possible compensation obligations.”
The Polish newspaper Election examined the prosecutor’s office materials and on Monday detailed the charges brought against Czarnecki.
Charnecki reportedly filed 243 claims to travel across the continent in 14 different cars, Chinese-made motorcycles, a 750cc Suzuki sportbike and even a heavy-duty truck.
Some of the cars’ license plates appeared to be fake, and the owners of others said they had never seen Charnetsky.
Many of the trips start from the eastern Polish town of Jaslo, where Czarnecki says he lives, but in fact he has lived for years in Warsaw, nearly 340 kilometers from Brussels.
Charnetsky insists it is not his fault and places the blame on staff who filled out expense reports, which he calls “lies and complete nonsense.”
“Again, as I have emphasized for the last four years, I did not file the travel expense forms that prosecutors and the media have cited,” he told POLITICO. “I did not enter the data. I have emphasized that repeatedly. It would be malicious not to admit it.”
Czarnecki has served in the European Parliament for a variety of parties, but for the past three terms he has joined the Law and Justice (PiS) party, which was in power from 2015 until last year.
The new government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk is pushing for prosecution of Law and Justice politicians for corruption and other misconduct and has singled out Czarnecki’s case as one to be addressed.
Tusk is preparing for presidential elections next year to replace incumbent Andrzej Duda, who is aligned with PiS, and corruption allegations could damage the Law and Justice party.
“I have returned all the money that the European Parliament asked for three years ago,” Czarnecki said. “I think this whole thing is about politics.”
The new Tusk government and its supporters cited Czarnecki as a shining example of the behavior allowed by the previous Law and Justice government, when prosecutors were under tight government control and failed to investigate many politically sensitive cases.
Monika Wielichowska, deputy speaker of the Polish parliament and a member of the Tusk Civic Union party, told Polish media: “This fraud must be investigated and severely punished.” She also said that if the report was true, Czarnecki’s actions were “shameless fraud.”
“Of course, when the corresponding verdict is delivered, we will have to draw the appropriate conclusions,” said party chairman Jarosław Kaczyński.
In 2018, he became the first vice-president of the European Parliament to be sacked after comparing Polish MEP Rosa Thun to a Nazi collaborator.
Czarnecki’s political connections also opened up other public positions for him, particularly in the field of Polish sports, where he held leadership positions in the Polish Football Association, the Polish Volleyball Association and the Polish Olympic Committee.
He initially claimed he had volunteered to take the position of vice-president of the Polish Volleyball Association, but Polish television station TVN later discovered he had been paid. Czarnecki responded that he had been forced to take the money.
Last year, he told TVN that serving as vice president without pay would have created “an awkward, unnatural situation, and I was persuaded not to do it.”
Charnetsky, 63, is a politician who has changed parties and positions over the past few decades, but has always achieved success. He stressed that this time will be no exception.