BRUSSELS — The de facto capital of the European Union is being rocked by explosive allegations that World Cup host Qatar bribed current and former European Parliament officials to try to influence decisions at the highest levels.
European authorities have yet to confirm the implicated country, but it was widely reported to be Qatar. A key suspect, member of European Parliament Eva Kaili, will appear in Belgian court on Thursday. Her partner, parliamentary assistant Francesco Giorgi, as well as a former member of the European Parliament, Pier Antonio Panzeri, have also been charged and remain in custody. Qatar has denied wrongdoing.
Within E.U. institutions, this is being talked about as the biggest scandal in recent memory.
Here’s what you need to know.
Who is Eva Kaili, and what is she accused of?
Before being charged in this case and stripped of some responsibilities, Eva Kaili, 44, was one of the European Parliament’s vice presidents.
The vice presidents can stand in for the institution’s president when needed, including overseeing votes. They also have a say in administrative, personnel and organizational questions.
But their power is limited. The European Parliament has 14 vice presidents and 705 members. It is also seen as the weakest of the three key institutions of the European Union.
Belgian police arrested Kaili — known in Greece as a former news anchor — and charged her with taking part in a criminal organization, money laundering and corruption, according to Agence France-Presse. News of the arrest and police investigation was first reported by Belgian news outlets Le Soir and Knack.
The fallout was immediate: Her political group in the European Parliament, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), suspended her, as did her political party in Greece, the Pasok-Movement for Change. European Parliament President Roberta Metsola suspended Kaili from her “powers, duties and tasks” as vice president, and last week, members of the European Parliament voted to end her term as vice president.
Belgian prosecutors said in a statement that they had seized “600,000 euros at the home of a suspect, several hundred thousand euros in a suitcase in a Brussels hotel room and about 150,000 euros in a flat belonging to a Member of the European Parliament.”
According to the Belgian newspaper L’Echo, some of that cash was taken during the raid on Kaili’s home, and it was Kaili’s father who was found leaving a Sofitel hotel in Brussels with the suitcase of money. Inspectors suspect he was tipped off about the unfolding police operation, L’Echo reported, citing police sources.
Belgian authorities tweeted pictures of some of the funds recovered, including one that showed a suitcase full of cash.
How is Qatar allegedly involved?
Belgian prosecutors suspect “that third parties in political and/or strategic positions within the European Parliament were paid large sums of money or offered substantial gifts to influence parliament’s decision.” Belgian news outlets have widely reported that the “Gulf country” suspected of being behind the scheme is Qatar, though E.U. authorities have not named it.
Kaili recently traveled to Qatar, meeting with Labor Minister Ali bin Samikh Al Marri, even though a previous trip organized for a European Parliament delegation was postponed by Qatari officials with little advance notice, Politico reported.
Back in Brussels, according to Politico, Kaili attended a vote of the European Parliament’s justice and home affairs committee — of which she is not a member — to support a proposal to allow Qataris and Kuwaitis visa-free travel within the E.U.’s Schengen Area.
She also described the country as a “front-runner in labor rights” in a Nov. 21 debate on alleged human rights abuses during the construction of the World Cup infrastructure. At the conclusion of that debate, the European Parliament condemned the deaths of thousands of migrant workers during the construction of eight stadiums, an airport expansion, a new metro, many hotels and miles of new roads. The European body criticized both Qatar and soccer’s governing body, FIFA.
The Qatari government has denied any involvement in the alleged corruption scheme, which has made news as the World Cup is in its final rounds and the country is seeking to present itself as a key, forward-looking geopolitical actor.
“The State of Qatar categorically rejects any attempts to associate it with accusations of misconduct,” the Qatari Mission to the European Union said in a tweet Sunday. “Any association of the Qatari government with the reported claims is baseless and gravely misinformed.”
— Qatar Mission to the European Union (@QatarMissionEU) December 11, 2022
What does this mean for European politics?
The charges raise fresh questions about corruption and influence-peddling in E.U. institutions, putting current and former officials under scrutiny and likely leading to calls for an overhaul of institutional oversight.
In Brussels, the revelations were greeted with shock, but not surprise, with E.U. watchers and experts noting long-standing concerns about the bloc’s institutions, particularly the European Parliament.
“Whatever its final outcome, the Qatar ‘corruption’ scandal has unveiled an inconvenient, and for most Europeans already obvious, truth. Money does buy influence in the EU,” wrote Alberto Alemanno, a professor of European Union law at HEC Paris, in an opinion piece for Politico Europe.
“While this may be the most egregious case of alleged corruption the European Parliament has seen in many years, it is not an isolated incident,” Michiel van Hulten, director of Transparency International EU, said in a statement.
The European Parliament “has allowed a culture of impunity to develop,” thanks to lax financial rules and the absence of independent ethics oversight, van Hulten said, adding that members of the European Parliament have blocked attempts to change that. He called for the European Commission to publish its “long-delayed proposal on the creation of an independent EU ethics body, with powers of investigation and enforcement.”
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, has called for the creation of such a body, but the official charged with making that happen has conceded that it would probably lack the ability to investigate or enforce.
Von der Leyen called the allegations against Kaili “very serious.” Josep Borrell, head of the bloc’s foreign and security arm, said they were “very worrisome.”
For now, the scandal is a gift to the E.U.’s critics, particularly leaders such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban, who regularly lambastes the bloc for criticizing democratic shortcomings within E.U. countries.
Orban’s Twitter account posted a meme that showed a group of men laughing hysterically with the words “And then they said the [European Parliament] is seriously concerned about corruption in Hungary” superimposed.
Who else is implicated?
Kaili’s partner, Francesco Giorgi, was also arrested and charged, and his phone was seized by Belgian law enforcement, according to Le Soir.
The European Parliament lists Giorgi as an accredited assistant to Italian MEP Andrea Cozzolino, who is part of the same parliamentary group as Kaili and who chairs the delegation for relations with the Maghreb countries, in northwest Africa. Giorgi describes himself on LinkedIn as a “policy advisor in the field of Human Rights, EU foreign affairs with an extensive network of contacts with parliamentarians, politicians, EU Institutions, NGO’s, diplomats.”
Giorgi also lists himself as a founder of the Brussels-based global human rights nonprofit Fight Impunity, whose president, Pier Antonio Panzeri, is also implicated in the corruption investigation.
Panzeri, 67, was a member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2019. Among other positions, he chaired the delegation for relations with the Maghreb countries (DMAG) as part of the S&D group. He founded Fight Impunity in 2019 and now serves as its president.
According to Le Soir, Belgian investigators suspect Panzeri of leading a criminal organization to influence decision-making within the European Parliament with cash and gifts on behalf of the Qatari government.
Italian police detained Panzeri’s wife and daughter, who were the subjects of a European arrest warrant, according to Politico and the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
Timsit reported from London. Beatriz Ríos in Brussels contributed to this report.
