After Semedo was suspended from the European Parliament for a period of 15 days, following complaints of psychological harassment filed last year by 3 former assistants, the MEP on Tuesday evening announced in a Facebook post that she would be resigning from the DP, following a lack of support from the latter. 

“I would have liked to speak out in the past few days, but the DP recommended me not to do so. I was OK with this, not least to protect the party. However, following the events of the past days, as I have lost trust and as the support has changed from one week to the next, it is with a heavy heart that I wanted to let you know that I will be resigning from the DP,” she wrote. 

Following the announcement of the suspension during a public session at the European Parliament, Semedo, in a press release, apologised and accepted the suspension. 

On Monday, party leader Corinne Cahen and secretary general Claude Lamberty, in a video statement, underlined that the party condemned any form of harassment, bullying and the like and that such behaviour was unacceptable. Therefore, the DP executive office had decided to refer the matter to the party’s executive committee and propose the convening of a steering committee in order to discuss the repercussions of Semedo’s behaviour on her DP membership, Cahen explained in the video. 

Semedo and the DP had also agreed that awaiting the evaluation of the committee, she would not participate in meetings of the executive board or the executive committee, of which she is a member. 

The executive committee is supposed to meet on Wednesday, however, with her Facebook announcement, Semedo has pre-empted any decision taken by the party. 

Nevertheless, Semedo, in her post said “The executive committee of the DP is free to and should take its decision tomorrow and I am willing to present myself to the steering committee should it want me to.”

Reacting to the resignation, the DP, in a Facebook post stated that it was a party that would give everyone a chance and would not leave anyone out in the rain, which is why it had sought dialogue with Semedo. “It is regrettable that this process has been stopped unilaterally, not giving this internal party dialogue a chance,” the statement said. 

So far, Semedo has not yet given details on whether or not she was planning to also resign from her position in the European Parliament, she did however say that she would continue to stand up for all those that are supporting her.