Belgium (Brussels Morning Newspaper) Top EU officials expressed shock and dismay as a high-level corruption scandal unfurling over the weekend appeared to have involved a vice president of the European Parliament and a number of assistants, as well as heads of Brussels-based human rights NGOs.
The Belgian police made six arrests on Friday evening, including Greek MEP and EP vice president Eva Kaili, under suspicion of participating in a criminal organisation, corruption and money laundering.
The charges reportedly stemmed from a Gulf state attempting to illegally influence political and economic decisions made in the European Parliament. Several Belgian media reported that the state in question was the 2022 World Cup host Qatar.
On Sunday, Belgian judge Michel Claise raised charges against four detained persons, while the remaining two were released. Belgian media again claim that Kaili is one of the persons who were charged and detained.
Red handed
As members of European Parliament enjoy immunity from prosecution, it appears that Kaili was caught in the act of committing a crime – the only case in which immunity does not prevent the authorities from detaining a serving MEP, without him or her previously being stripped of parliamentary immunity.
According to Le Soir, bags of money containing some 600,000 euro were found inside Kaili’s apartment. Some media report Kaili’s father was also apprehended with a suitcase full of cash, after reportedly being informed of the police action.
Kaili’s party, the Pan-Hellenistic Socialist Movement (PASOK) annulled her membership on Friday night, and she was also suspended by the group of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) in the European Parliament. EP president Roberta Metsola also suspended Kaili from the position of vice president on Saturday, with MEPs slated to vote on her permanent removal from the position as soon as Tuesday.
Kaili, a former TV host and a local celebrity in Greece, was one of the leading MEPs on issues of technology in the EP, championing AI and blockchain technologies. As vice president of the Parliament since February this year, Kaili was also in charge of relations with Middle Eastern countries.
Defender of Qatar
The Greek MEP was one of the most vocal defenders of Qatar ahead of the 2022 World Cup, defending the authoritarian country’s labour record and insisting great improvements have been made in the country’s labour laws.
“Despite this, some here are still calling to discriminate against them,” said Kaili during an EP speech just weeks before the World Cup. “They bully them, and accuse those who engage with them of corruption.”
Kaili’s partner Francesco Giorgi, an assistant to Belgian MEP Marie Arena, was also one of the four persons kept in detention. Other suspects include former Italian MEP Pier-Antonio Panzeri, currently the head of FIght Impunity NGO, and International Confederation of Labour Unions (ITUC) secretary Luca Visentini.
Italian media report that Panzeri’s wife and daughter were also arrested in Italy, acting in concert with Belgian investigators. The Italian police documents reportedly cite “political intervention among European Parliament members to benefit Qatar and Morocco” as charges leading to the arrests.
Force of law
The S&D group in the parliament welcomed the investigation on Saturday, and called for any and all debates and votes regarding Middle Eastern policies in the European Parliament to be postponed or cancelled in light of the recent corruption accusations.
Speaking ahead of the foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels on Monday, High Representative Josep Borrell said the news appeared very worrisome. “We are facing some events, some facts that certainly worry me – as a former President of the European Parliament,” said Borrell. “There are police and judiciary actions. We have to follow these actions. We are very much, certainly, concerned about this news.”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stressed that the “full force of law” had to be brought to bear in the case. “This is about the credibility of Europe, so this has to trigger consequences in various areas,” said Baerbock.
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