2023-05-08 16:39:37
What is ‘Qatargate’ and who is involved
Since the outbreak of ‘Qatargate’, the alleged corruption scandal that led to the arrest of the then vice-president of the European Parliament, Eva Kailli, and a former MEP among others last December, the expenses of the European institutions and their way of interacting of their high officials with third countries are under scrutiny. A newspaper article Politico published this past Saturday shows that some European commissioners, including the high representative for EU foreign policy, Josep Borrell, vthey will accept that third countries – among themselves Qatar, Morocco, Uzbekistan, Israel or Jordan– pay theirs accommodation expenses on official trips to these countries.
The text, which echoes the travel expenses of the last three years, points out that there were seven senior officials who agreed that other countries would take over their hotel bill. This is the case of Borrell in Qatar, Uzbekistan and Jordan. The vice president of the Commission, the Dutch, also accepted the diplomatic “hospitality” of the Government of Vietnam Frans Timmermans last year and from the United Arab Emirates the vice-president responsible for the promotion of European values, Margaret Schinas when he traveled to the peninsula to attend the Dubai exhibition and hold meetings in Abu Dhabi.
Other commissioners who, according to Politicohave traveled in recent years with the hotel bill paid by third parties are responsible for the extension, Oliver Castlein Morocco, Israel and Jordan, the commissioner of the interior, Ylva Johansson, in Morocco in 2020 (together with Commissioner Várhely), the Commissioner for Budgets, Johannes Hahn, in Qatar and Kuwait at the beginning of 2022. According to this media, none of the commissioners explicitly mentioned the fact that it was a third country that took care of the accommodation expense and they limited themselves to notifying the cost of “zero” . All except the energy commissioner, Kadri Samsonwho did report that accommodation on his trip to Egypt in June 2022 was provided by the “local government”.
code of conduct
“In some cases, the accommodation was provided by the respective national authorities as diplomatic hospitality (common practice in several countries that offer accommodation to high-ranking guests). This was accepted in accordance with article 6.2 of the Code of Conduct for Members of the Commission”, explained the European Commission on the acceptance of paid accommodation. According to Brussels, this decision is in line with the code of conduct and is the usual practice in diplomacy.
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In the specific case of Borrell, the trip to Jordan, Qatar and Uzbekistan was to participate in events, meetings or international conferences such as Dead Sea Forum, the Doha Forum and a forum on connectivity “in which the organizers or the inviting country covered the accommodation costs not only of him, but also of all speakers, participants or high-level guests”, explained his spokesman, who rejected the tone of the article.
“It can give the impression (in the article) that they go there for free, but all the cases mentioned are for participating in forums. Transport costs are covered by the European Commission”, he added expenses that are public and which show that the missions “were mostly paid for by the Commission”. “The specific nature of the functions of the high representative requires extensive inter-institutional and political commitments with third countries and international organizations, as well as with various interested parties. For these institutional reasons and to fulfill his mission and represent the Commission and the EU in his capacity as High Representative, he must carry out numerous missions to third countries”, added the Commission in a statement.
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