The Nationalist Party has described as 'a lie' claims by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat that its MEPs committed fraud of European Parliament funds.

Dr Muscat said this morning that while the European Parliament handed funds to MEPs to open regional offices, the Nationalist MEPs had not opened any but were instead using space at PN headquarters and the funds were ending up in the PN, which went against EU rules.

The PN said the funds allocated to its MEPs had been declared, audited and published. It published certification statements which, it said, confirmed Dr Muscat's claim as a lie. 

This, it said, was an attempt by Labour to distract public opinion from the charges being made against him. 

See documents on pdf below.

PL INSISTS ON CHALLENGE

In a reaction, the Labour Party said the documents published by the PN changed nothing. If anything, they raised more questions.

PL CEO Gino Cauchi told a press conference that this was the third recent case of the PN circumventing funding rules, after the ċedoli scheme and the donations by the DB group against fake invoices.

He said Simon Busuttil had not referred the new case to the EU's anti-fraud office, as Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had challenged him to do if he had nothing to hide.