European Parliament Member Grzegorz Braun was suspended for 30 days from the European Parliament plenary activities for his disruption of a January 29 moment of silence for victims of the Holocaust, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola announced at the opening of the Monday plenary session.
The monarchist Confederation of the Polish Crown chairman and MEP, who had called out “Let’s pray for the victims of the Jewish genocide in Gaza” during the moment of silence, was suspended from participation in the next Holocaust commemoration session.
According to a Tuesday parliament press release, Braun’s 30-day plenary suspension and his forfeiture of his daily subsistence allowance began on March 10.
Comments on the disruption
Metsola said that the punishment took into account his recurrent disrespect for the parliament’s standards of conduct, culminating in the January 29 incident in which he “inflicted severe damage on the dignity and reputation of Parliament.”
Braun said on X that the penalties had been imposed on him for calling for a prayer for the victims of a supposed genocide during the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. His Monday response came accompanied by a social media post by writer Thomas Sommer, who suggested that because Jews were supposedly carrying out a genocide in the name of Jewishness, it should be reconsidered if it made sense to commemorate the tragedies suffered by them.
In January, Braun had also said that he had not disturbed the ceremony for International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp but had rather supplemented the proceedings.
Fellow Polish MEP and European People’s Party member Lukasz Kohut applauded the sanctioning of Braun on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday, calling him a “clown.”
On Tuesday, the European Jewish Congress also welcomed the decision, stating on social media that “Such actions have no place at the heart of European democracy.”
Braun is no stranger to controversy, having used a fire extinguisher to put out Hanukkah candles in the Polish parliament in 2023, defending his actions as restoring “normality.”
He had said at the time, “Those who take part in acts of satanic worship should be ashamed.”