CWT last month canceled travel bookings for the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, who was due to speak at the Parliament in Strasbourg because of U.S. sanctions, according to an internal email seen by POLITICO.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe use of CWT for our travel arrangements exposes MEPs and Parliament staff to the real and present danger of U.S. sanctions, which have already been weaponized against European officials in the past,\u201d the letter warns. \u201cSuch measures are not merely theoretical; they are a direct threat to the operational independence and dignity of our institution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Signatories of the letter include Andreas Schwab from the center-right European People\u2019s Party; Tiemo W\u00f6lken, Laura Ballar\u00edn Cereza and Aurore Lalucq from the Socialists and Democrats; Helmut Brandst\u00e4tter, Christophe Grudler, St\u00e9phanie Yon-Courtin and Sandro Gozi from the liberal Renew group; Alexandra Geese and Nela Riehl from the Greens; and Leila Chaibi from The Left.<\/p>\n
The internal email said the Parliament is working to contract an alternative Belgian travel booking provider it can use for sanctioned individuals. <\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Parliament told POLITICO: “A structural solution is in place for such situations, allowing the necessary arrangements to be made without any delay.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a matter of policy, and in compliance with applicable law, American Express Global Business Travel does not comment on our clients,\u201d a spokesperson for the company said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CWT last month canceled travel bookings for the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[3592,6034,6035,817,6036,1502,3085,2421,3594,12,245,6037,6038,1430,388,441,1434,3599,2289,642,6039,1745,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-5702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-roberta-metsola","8":"tag-alexandra-geese","9":"tag-andreas-schwab","10":"tag-aurore-lalucq","11":"tag-big-tech","12":"tag-christophe-grudler","13":"tag-companies","14":"tag-competitiveness","15":"tag-data","16":"tag-digital","17":"tag-donald-trump","18":"tag-france","19":"tag-laura-ballarin-cereza","20":"tag-leila-chaibi","21":"tag-meps","22":"tag-parliament","23":"tag-roberta-metsola","24":"tag-sanctions","25":"tag-sandro-gozi","26":"tag-services","27":"tag-software","28":"tag-stephanie-yon-courtin","29":"tag-trade","30":"tag-united-states"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116338549217030423","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}