The visa-free entry agreement for Qatar residents to the European Union will be suspended until further notice. This, following the investigation into one of the most serious corruption scandals in the history of the European Parliament, which was revealed at the end of the week: suspicion of buying political and image influence by Qatar in exchange for money for European legislators.
Last Friday, the Belgian police in large forces raided several apartments in Brussels as well as offices in the European Parliament, including that of Vice President Eva Kaili (44). The police arrested Kylie and three other high-ranking suspects, and confiscated “bags of money” which allegedly contained at least 600,000 euros from the encroaching country, as well as mobile phones and computers.
Already on Saturday indictments were filed against the suspects alleging “participation in criminal organization, acts of corruption and money laundering”. “A country from the Gulf,” they wrote, “has allegedly paid large sums of money or offered substantial gifts to key strategic factors in the European Parliament in order to influence its decisions.” According to reports, the country is Qatar. The four suspects are still in custody.
A democratic masterpiece? Poor moral standards
The affair, revealed while the World Cup games are still taking place in Qatar, is shaking Brussels and the entire European Union. In recent years, extensive evidence has been published of widespread and systematic bribery distributed by Qatar in order to bring the World Cup to its territory, even postponing it to the winter months.
Several members of the “FIFA” executive committee who made the decision in 2010 have already been convicted of accepting bribes. But so far, many in Europe have refused to believe that “FIFA’s” poor moral standards will also be adopted in the European Parliament – which is supposed to be a global democratic model. and who sees himself as a defender of human rights globally.
At the center of public attention in the affair now stands Kylie, a former news anchor and current politician from the Greek socialist PASOK party, who was elected to the European Parliament in 2014 and is considered one of the most senior in its social democratic wing (the European parties from the various countries join factions according to their political leanings, AA) Kylie was even elected to serve as one of the 14 vice-presidents of the European Parliament last year.
Contrary to the positions of many of her fellow faction members, Kylie has come out repeatedly in recent months in favor of Qatar, to publicly praise the country, and even visited the country as part of her role in the European Parliament, for a meeting with the Minister of Labor last month. Despite the criticism that Qatar is responsible for the death of thousands of foreign workers during the construction of the stadiums and infrastructure for the current World Cup, Kylie said that “Qatar is a world pioneer in the field of labor.” She came out against the country’s critics and said that they “accuse anyone who says anything positive about Qatar of corruption.”
In the last day it became clear that Kylie also apparently worked behind the scenes for the country. According to reports in Europe, Kylie voted last week in favor of opening the gates of the European Union to residents of Qatar without the need for a visa, at a meeting of a committee of the European Parliament on the matter. She did this even though she is not a member of the committee at all, and her partners in the Social Democratic faction accuse her of “sneaking” into the vote, and did it instead of another member of the faction.
In parliament it is sometimes possible to vote in place of another member, but this was not the case. A complaint was filed against her by the chairman of the committee. The committee decided with a clear majority in favor of the possibility of entry without a visa, so it is not clear whether the vote changed the picture. Meanwhile, the vote in the parliament itself, which was supposed to make the decision a reality and was planned to take place this week, was postponed to an unknown date following the investigation.
Pressure is mounting to remove Kylie’s immunity
Most of the other detainees in the affair are Italians, including Kylie’s partner, Francesco Giorgio, who serves as a foreign policy advisor to the European Parliament, and heads a non-governmental organization called Fight Impunity. This organization has also stood out in its support for Qatar in recent months.
Another suspect: a former member of the European Parliament named Antonio Panzeri, who was apparently the first political figure the Qataris turned to. Panzeri’s family members, according to the suspicion, received, among other things, a vacation worth 100 thousand euros in Qatar. His wife and daughter were arrested in Bergamo in an operation coordinated with the Belgian police. A senior official of the International Trade Union Organization (ITU) was also arrested, and the office of Belgian Social Democrat member of parliament Marc Tarabella was also searched.
In the two days since the arrest, Kylie was expelled from her Greek party and suspended from her membership in the European Parliament. Now pressure is mounting to remove her immunity. Theoretically, the authorities can detain her for about a month until the trial against her begins. However, according to reports, there is significant evidence in the investigation, which began last July.
Qatar has become a place of pilgrimage
Officially, the name of the “permissive state” behind the suspicions of bribery has not been released. But Qatar has already responded to the reports, rejecting “any accusation of illegal behavior”. “These are false accusations,” he told the media.
In recent months, the Gulf state has become a place of pilgrimage for European politicians trying to ensure the supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the continent, now that it is forced to cut off the gas that previously came in huge quantities from Russia. German Economy Minister Robert Habeck visited Qatar, as did Chancellor Olaf Schulz, and last month the emirate announced a “preliminary agreement” to supply millions of tons of LNG to Germany starting in two years. Qatar is one of the largest exporters of monzel gas, and the third in the ranking of natural gas reserves.
The current affair provokes sharp criticism of the European Parliament, a body that has also been accused in the past of being an “inflated” institution, which travels every few months between its two seats in Brussels and Strasbourg, where 705 legislators work in 24 official languages with a budget of billions of euros.
The chairman of the “Transparency International” organization said on the weekend that there is a “culture of immunity from prosecution” in the parliament, and that there is an immediate need for external supervision of what is happening there. “The current affair raises two immediate questions,” the German “Spiegel” wrote, “whether Kylie showed an extraordinary lack of understanding because she thought the affair wouldn’t blow up? Or did she feel pretty safe because that kind of corruption is common in her line of work, and she didn’t think it was a big deal?”
The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metzola, called for an emergency meeting of the existing factions in it. “We will fully cooperate with the authorities and the police to help justice come to light,” said the president’s spokesperson.