Ryszard Czarnecki hosts a public hearing in the European Parliament March 2012 | Bruno Arnold/EPA MEPs vote to remove Ryszard Czarnecki as vice president The MEP sparked outrage when he compared a fellow Polish legislator to a Nazi collaborator.

The European Parliament voted by a large majority in favor of removing one of its vice presidents, Ryszard Czarnecki, from his position after he sparked outrage by comparing a fellow Polish MEP to a Nazi collaborator.

MEPs voted by 447 in favor and 196 against his early termination of office. Czarnecki, who is a member of the governing PiS party in Poland, will remain an MEP in the Euroskeptic European Conservatives and Reformists group.

The Parliament will now have to elect a new vice president from the ECR group to replace him.

Wednesday’s vote took place a week after the Conference of Presidents, the Parliament’s main political organ, voted to end Czarnecki’s term on grounds of to “serious misconduct.”

Last month, Czarnecki compared MEP Róża Thun from Poland’s opposition Civic Platform party to a Szmalcownik — a pejorative Polish term used to describe a person collaborating with the Nazis during World War II.

The Parliament said that the Conference of Presidents’ decision was not targeting Poland and the PiS, which is caught up in an ongoing battle with the EU concerning its rule of law and controversial judicial reforms. “The proposal by the Conference of Presidents is not aimed at Poland or the ECR political group,” the Parliament statement said. “The proposal simply expresses the opinion of the political leaders that Mr Czarnecki should no longer represent them.”