The announcement that the European Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating an alleged fraud in European funds in relation to the training of young diplomats, a case that has ended with the arrest and interrogation of the former head of European diplomacy Federica Mogherini, has coincided with the final negotiations in the Belgian capital of a European directive to reinforce the fight against corruption that has been underway since 2023. The irony is not lost on anyone in a Brussels once again shaken by a scandal – and there have been several in just a few years – which, furthermore, could not have come at a worse time for European institutions that are more questioned than ever, both from outside and within their own ranks. Above all by an increasingly stronger extreme right in all spheres of power and that has not hesitated to use the new potential case to attack the heart of Europe.
“The swamp of Brussels gives no respite,” Vox MEP Jorge Buxadé declared, visibly pleased, as soon as he learned of the police operation in the offices of the European External Action Service (EEAS) and at the Bruges headquarters of the College of Europe, directed by Mogherini and a breeding ground for European officials. Or, as the ultra-Spanish politician defines them, “the bloody elites who position themselves and support each other (…). Brussels is a swamp of corruption. We are going to remove all cases of corruption,” he promised in a video distributed on the social networks of the far-right party and ally of Hungarian Viktor Orbán in Brussels. The video does not clarify that none of the senior officials taken into police custody for questioning – including former EEAS Secretary General and current senior Commission official Stefano Sannino – have yet been formally charged.
Nor has this detail stopped Moscow, enraged by European interference in its plans to cajole Washington into a peace deal favorable to its interests in Ukraine, from attacking the EU. The spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, stated that while Brussels “is constantly lecturing others (…), millions of euros flow daily through the channels of corruption from the EU to Ukraine.”
In her statements, collected by Europa Press, Zajarova has indirectly alluded to another of the extreme right’s fixations against the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, whom they accuse of lack of transparency in the purchase of Pfizer vaccines during the covid pandemic. It is not something new: already in July, just before a first motion of censure presented by the extreme right against the German in this case failed, the Kremlin took the opportunity to launch a narrative about the “dysfunctions” of European institutions, with the aim of “polarizing and weakening” the EU, according to an analysis by disinformation experts.
The new case also comes when the most serious scandal that has shaken Brussels in its recent history remains unresolved: the Qatargatethe alleged attempt to bribe MEPs and former European officials by countries such as Qatar or Morocco. He Qatargate broke out almost three years ago, on December 9, 2022, with another spectacular police operation in Brussels that ended with the arrest of the then vice president of the European Chamber Eva Kaili, her partner and parliamentary advisor Francesco Giorgi, and a former Italian MEP, Pier Antonio Panzeri, who ran an NGO, Fight Impunity (another of the ironies of Brussels).
In Fight Impunity, Mogherini appeared along with other high-ranking international figures as a member of the honorary council of the organization that was used as a screen for the shenanigans of those involved. These, despite having mostly spent a long time in preventive detention, still do not have a trial date in Belgium. Nor have the battery of measures of greater transparency and control that the European institutions promised after the scandal taken hold.
Meanwhile, cases have continued to pile up. The exaggerated power of the lobbies in the Belgian capital was highlighted in 2022 with the so-called Uber Files about the aggressive practices of the private transport platform to impose itself in the countries and that also spilled into the European Parliament. Despite the shock that this case caused a few months before the QatargateBrussels seems prone to relapse: this same year, in March, the Belgian police searched the Brussels offices of the Chinese technology giant Huawei and arrested several of its lobbyists, in the context of another alleged case of “active corruption in the European Parliament.” And in November the indictment of the former Commissioner of Justice, the Belgian Didier Reynders, for an alleged case of money laundering was announced.
Now, the shadow of corruption once again extends over the European institutions and their bases, such as the College of Europe, which trains a good part of its officials.
“It is difficult to imagine a worse time for the EU to face a public integrity scandal,” Alberto Alemanno, founder of the organization, commented on social networks. The Good Lobbywhich promotes “accessible, transparent, responsible and accountable” lobbying. For the political scientist, it is clear that the EU “needs a specific supervision body (beyond the European Public Prosecutor’s Office).”
The co-president of the Left group in the European Parliament, Manon Aubry (France Insoumise), has called “urgently for a stronger ethical body that stops corruption at its source, instead of waiting for the next scandal to break out.”
Perhaps spurred by the new scandal, representatives of the Council and the European Parliament have closed this Tuesday a compromise text of the new anti-corruption directive, which for the first time harmonizes at European level the definitions of corruption crimes as well as the minimum sanctions they should entail, as well as the rules for a “more effective investigation and prosecution.” But for the ECR group of the Prime Minister of Italy, the ultra Giorgia Meloni, this will not solve the EU’s problems either. “Behind him Qatargate and new accusations involving Commissioner Reynders and the former EEAS leadership, citizens expected strict integrity standards. Instead, the EU decided to exempt itself. It will be very difficult to explain to the public why EU officials are exempt from the most basic transparency obligations,” criticized ECR MEP Mariusz Kaminski.
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