Angelika Niebler: CSU vice-president resigns from leadership position in the EU Parliament

The CSU MEP Angelika Niebler is withdrawing from chairing the German delegation in the conservative EPP group around five months after her chauffeur affair. Several sources familiar with the process reported this to SPIEGEL. Niebler himself did not respond to a request via text message. The Christian Social Party had held its position since 2014 and was the first woman to hold this leadership position.

The CSU representative and former JU state chairman Christian Doleschal is to be elected as his successor.

Niebler, who is also deputy party leader of the CSU, became the focus of international attention in May. The background is allegations from the European Public Prosecutor's Office that it employed local employees as drivers and systematically used them for private appointments. For example, she is said to have had herself driven to a hairdresser's appointment or to the airport before a vacation trip at state expense.

There are also further inconsistencies in dealing with your employees. She is said to have employed an employee at taxpayer expense who was actually said to have worked for a former EU representative, even though he was no longer in office at the time of the employment.

Niebler denies the allegations. The European Parliament has refused to lift her immunity, which some MPs see as a scandal.

There is also dissatisfaction with the process in the EPP group. Several MPs report that Niebler's resignation is due to the affair. She has been a member of the European Parliament since 1999 and has been a member of the CSU party executive board since 2009.