The corruption scandal in the European Parliament has shocked the community institutions in Brussels. An entire vice president of the European Parliament has been dismissed for serious misconduct after being charged with corruption and money laundering by the Belgian justice in the so-called Qatargate. There are more parliamentarians under suspicion of having received payments for laundering the State of Qatar, but in the case of the Greek Eva Kaili, the evidence was overwhelming after the police detained her father as he rushed out of the MEP’s home with a suitcase full of unjustified money.
The news has perplexed the citizens of the continent, because there was a feeling that the European institutions were shielded from corruption. And not just them. President Roberta Metsola has not hidden her anger at these criminal acts that broke out at the end of her term. The Home Affairs Commissioner, Ylva Johansson, has called for increased transparency and accountability in the European institutions. And even Iratxe García, the president of the socialist group, to which the defendant vice-president belonged, has declared that it is being difficult to assimilate what happened.
The cynic Joseph Fouche, whom Stefan Zweig called a “dark genius” in his biography, said that every man had a price and what was needed was to know what it was. I don’t think every human being can be bought, as if they were just another product in the supermarket. There are fully honest people, but surely less than we would like. What has happened in the European Parliament is shocking because we had always believed that there were sufficient control mechanisms in the European institutions to avoid temptations.
Commissioner Johansson has called for criminalizing any form of corruption in all the countries of the Union, not only bribery, but also influence peddling, illicit enrichment or embezzlement. It is curious that these words coincide in changes in the Penal Code in Spain. They are going to put the magnifying glass on all the states: the EU cannot afford another low blow to its credibility.
