The Pirate Party's Sven Clement has hit out at his fellow MP Marc Goergen after the latter appeared on RTL Radio to criticise his colleague, in a week marked by internal strife for the party.

In the interview, which aired on Friday morning, Goergen said there was no longer a sense of trust among the party members, and revealed that he and Clement kept to a "bare minimum" of interactions. He also claimed that Clement had failed to treat former member Ben Polidori with sufficient respect, leading to Polidori's exit from the party earlier this week.

But the core issue is that of the MALT language app, a project which has garnered controversy due to a lack of transparency, resulting in Goergen accusing Clement of mismanaging party funds.

On Friday afternoon, Clement refuted the claims and said Georgen was guilty of bullying others in the party for years, using threats, manipulation and lies to divide members. Now, Clement said Goergen was attempting to push him out of the party, and added that he blamed himself for allowing the behaviour to continue unchecked for so long.

Extrait Sven Clement

"For the past few years I have repeatedly defended Marc Goergen, tried to stop his divisive activities, and to console people," Clement wrote in a statement. "Now this is being used against me. I note this with no small amount of surprise. I wonder how it took so long for these claims to be made and I have no intention of capitulating without a fight."

When asked about the accusations of financial mismanagement to his own benefit in the MALT app project, Clement said Goergen should be more careful with his accusations, as there was evidence that Goergen himself had financially benefited from the party, which Clement planned to reveal in a press conference at 2pm on Friday.

In addition, Clement sent a 25-page letter to the Pirate Party committee on Friday morning, detailing Goergen's shortcomings. He said the party would now have to decide whether it wanted to focus on human beings and fair dealings with each other, or whether it wanted to be torn apart by intrigue.

Andy Maar was a member long before Marc Goergen 

Long-time party general secretary Andy Maar, who was mentioned by name in the interview this morning, has previously stated his position via Facebook. He denied accusations of election manipulation at the 2015 congress, and refuted claims that the former members who worked on the MALT app did so with the intention of enriching themselves. He said the workload had not been fair in comparison to the remuneration, and added that things could have gone differently if the project's scope had been correctly assessed.

Maar, who has accused Goergen of establishing a "toxic environment" within the Pirate Party, resigned in 2020 following an internal change of direction and what he referred to as "mutterings" around the 2018 parliamentary elections.