The European Union is a liberal’s dream: no pesky national sovereignty, an attenuated democracy, a government of, by, and for self-appointed elites. Just what America’s liberals aspire to. How could it go wrong?
For starters, it could be corrupt. It turns out that Qatar handed out a lot of cash to members of the European Parliament in connection with the current World Cup tournament. The London Times reports:
Police have seized more than €1 million as part of an inquiry into alleged corruption in the European Union under which a vice-president has been arrested.
The scandal, described as one the biggest corruption investigations in the history of the European parliament, has cast a shadow over MEPs as they gather in Strasbourg. It raises questions over the probity of decisions taken by the parliament.
Eva Kaili, a Greek Socialist and vice-president of the parliament, is being held in custody by a Belgian prosecutor with three other people.
Eva Kaili
Eva Kaili appears to be hopelessly corrupt–par for the course for a Socialist:
Kaili was found to have bags of cash at her Brussels home, according to reports. She was arrested after a raid on her home where police found some €150,000 hidden in “luxurious travel bags”, according to judicial sources.
The raid followed the lifting of her parliamentary immunity after her father, Alezandros Kailis, was arrested at his hotel on Friday carrying a suitcase stuffed with €600,000 in cash. Kaili’s sister has also been arrested.
By traditional definition, Kaili is an honest politician: once bought, she stays bought. She “raised eyebrows by calling Qatar a ‘front-runner in labour rights’ amid concerns over deaths and poor working conditions for construction workers building stadiums ahead of the World Cup.”
As with the Biden crime family, an enormous amount of money is sloshing around:
Belgian investigators said €600,000 had been seized at the home of a suspect, several hundred thousand euros in a suitcase in a Brussels hotel room, and about €150,000 in a flat belonging to an MEP. Four people have been charged with corruption, money laundering and participating in a criminal organisation.
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Police found another €600,000 in cash during a search of the house of Antonio Panzeri, a former Italian MEP and president of the Fight Impunity NGO. Investigators consider him the “leader” who, at the request of Qatar, instructed aides of European parliamentarians what to say and how to vote.
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More than 16 raids took place over the weekend, including in Italy and Greece, as police seized large quantities of high-denomination cash, computer equipment and mobile phones linked to the scandal.
Like the proprietor of Rick’s Cafe, EU officials are shocked–shocked!–to learn that EU parliamentarians have hundreds of thousands of euros in their suitcases. Hey, don’t you?
Roberta Metsola, the parliament’s president and speaker, will make a statement this afternoon and will vow to “clean up” the EU’s directly elected and consultative assembly.
Good luck with that. Where there is little or no accountability, there will be massive corruption. Some observers are more realistic:
Michiel van Hulten, a former Dutch Socialist MEP, who is now director of the anti-corruption organisation Transparency International in Brussels, warned that the new scandal “is not an isolated incident”.
“Over many decades, the parliament has allowed a culture of impunity to develop, with a combination of lax financial rules and controls and a complete lack of independent — or indeed any — ethics oversight,” he said. “In many ways it has become a law unto itself.”
I doubt that there is any way to clean up the European Parliament or, more broadly, the European Union. The entire institution is, and was designed to be, corrupt. But how different is that from Washington, D.C. during the Age of Biden?
