The unfolding Qatargate scandal is exposing an ecosystem of corruption in the European Parliament – one which we truly hope is the exception, and not the rule, for this important institution.
Investigations are still ongoing after the shocking arrest of an MEP who used to embody “the bold and the beautiful” of European democracy.
Eva Kaili had everything: The youngest candidate in Greek national elections, the youngest MEP from her PASOK party, the winner of a 2018 MEP Awards for New Technologies, upholding an image of a hard-working and open-minded politician. For her future, the sky was the limit.
Yet thanks to a Belgian judge, we now understand that she was part of a rotten system of corruption involving politicians and NGOs – which apparently were for hire.
Especially worrying is that the ecosystem blossomed in a mainstream pro-European political group, the Socialists and Democrats, involving MEPs and politicians from founding members of the EU, such as Italy and Belgium.
It is even more shocking that the socialists, who normally spearhead workers’ rights, were hired to whitewash the image of Qatar, tarnished by slave labour accusations in the context of the ongoing football World Cup.
As the Belgian Anti-Corruption Bureau in charge of the investigation said, these people were in “strategic positions”: a former Italian MEP who – perhaps ironically – runs an NGO called ‘Fight Impunity’, a general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), an Italian academician, director of the NGO ‘No Peace Without Justice’, and a string of MEPs who took part in the activities organised by the NGOs.
The office of at least one of them was searched by the Belgian police.
Implicated NGOs such as ‘Fight Impunity’ and ‘No Peace Without Justice’, registered at the same Brussels address, attracted big names to their boards, such as Federica Mogherini, Bernard Cazeneuve, Dimitris Avramopoulos or Emma Bonino. They now beg to be erased from the respective websites, but the last time we checked, they were still present.
In the office of former MEP Pier-Antonio Panzeri, the head of ‘Fight Impunity’, reportedly, some €500,000 in cash was found.
NGOs such as ‘Fight Impunity’ have raised their voice, among other things, for the release from jail of Karim Massimov, the ex-chief of the secret services of the former strongman of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Massimov was accused of high treason during the January protests in Kazakhstan and has been in jail ever since.
The arrest of Kaili came as a surprise to the general public but, apparently, not to her family.
Her father was caught leaving her Brussels home with a suitcase full of cash, while her partner, an Italian national who has worked as an assistant to various MEPs since 2009, was reportedly a key go-between and is among the four detained in Belgium.
While not necessarily a crime or a conflict of interest, it is worth investigating.
Kaili is also on the advisory board of an organisation called ELONTech, or European Law Observatory on New Technologies, of which her sister Mantalena Kaili is the executive director. Mantalena Kaili has organised events in the European Parliament and Greece under the auspices of her sister.
There is no doubt that the European Parliament has a laissez-faire attitude toward family businesses built around MEPs. For example, there is no safeguard against a family member setting up an NGO or an association which would raise funds from an interested party in exchange for lobbying services by the respective MEP.
In any case, if an offence were committed, it would hardly stand in court without a smoking gun. As we have seen, money changes hands in bags, not via bank transfers, and there is no paper trail.
The European Parliament now has the daunting task of guaranteeing that Qatargate remains the exception and not the rule according to which MEPs work.
But let us not forget that this is not the first time MEPs have been bought by states with less-than-stellar reputations. The Azerbaijan Laundromat saw EU politicians from Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe paid off in return for glowing reports.
Enforcing safeguards is necessary to make it much more difficult for corruptors, be they from the Gulf states, Central Asia, Russia, China, or big corporations, to buy the MEPs we have voted for. I have personally voted for the Belgian socialists, and now I feel betrayed.
It would have been worse had this scandal erupted ahead of the European elections. There is still time until September 2024 to transform the current crisis into an opportunity to restore confidence in the work of MEPs. European Parliament President Roberta Metsola has a mammoth mission to accomplish.
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Look out for…
- Extraordinary Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council (Energy).
- European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg, debate with Slovenian PM Robert Golob.
- General Affairs Council.
- College of Commissioners meeting.
Views are the author’s.
[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic/Alice Taylor]
Source: euractiv.com
