Senator who ended every speech with a call for Carthage to be destroyed: "Carthago delenda est". When no referendum was forthcoming, Hannan began to use parliamentary procedure to draw attention to his campaign. Under the rules as they then stood, all MEPs were allowed to speak for up to 60 seconds following the vote on each matter on which they had voted, a procedure known as "Explanations of Vote". In 2008, he organised a multi-national rota of Eurosceptic MEPs to speak on every permissible vote, always ending their speeches by calling for a referendum on Lisbon. The campaign served to delay proceedings, and the President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering, declared that he should have a discretionary right to disallow any such interventions when he was "convinced that these are manifestly intended to cause, and will result in, a prolonged and serious obstruction of the procedures of the House or the rights of other Members" (Rule 20, para 1). Following this intervention when Hannan continued speaking after his allocated time, he was interrupted and had his microphone cut off by Luigi Cocilovo, one of the 14 Vice-Presidents. Hannan reacted by likening the European Parliament to 1930s Germany: In response to this the EPP leader, Joseph Daul, initiated proceedings to expel Hannan from the group. At the relevant meeting, Hannan told members that the ideological differences between him and the majority of EPP members on the question of European integration made his expulsion their only logical choice. He duly left the group on 20 February 2008, and sat as a non-attached (non-inscrit) member until the rest of the British Conservatives followed to form the European Conservatives and Reformists following the 2009 election. Hannan, who had campaigned against EPP membership since before his election, rejoined his colleagues in the new ECR Group in 2009, and became the first Secretary-General of its attached Euro-party, AECR, subsequently ACRE. While Secretary-General, ACRE has attracted criticism over spending of EU funds to promote events which are of limited relevance or benefit to the EU. On 10 December 2018, European parliament senior leaders ordered ACRE to repay €535,609 (£484,367) of EU funds adjudged to have been spent on inappropriate events, including €250,000 spent on a three-day event at a luxury beach resort in Miami and €90,000 spent on a trade "summit" at a five-star hotel on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kampala. Parliament authorities suggest