The EU is already so cosy with Qatar that there was no need for bribery to encourage closer links to Doha, the senior MEP at the heart of a cash-for-influence scandal has claimed.
Eva Kaili, 44, a Greek Socialist and a former vice-president of the European parliament with responsibility for relations with the Middle East, was arrested last week in police raids that netted more than €1.5 million in cash.
The money was allegedly to be used as bribes to extend Qatar’s influence before EU decisions on visa liberalisation and an aviation deal last year.
Kaili has denied that the money was meant for bribes and instead insisted that the EU’s relationship with Qatar was growing closer because Europe was trying to move away from dependency on Russian energy to seek new gas or oil supplies from Gulf states.
“It is absolutely false that I had any personal agenda in promoting Qatar’s interests,” she said through her lawyer, Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, late on Tuesday.
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“There were discussions from 2019 that the EU establish trade relations with Qatar, Kuwait and Oman.”
So close was the relationship, said Dimitrakopoulos, that Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the autocratic emir of Qatar, had been invited to address the EU assembly, a rare honour for a foreign leader. The parliament denied that any such invitation had ben extended.
Kaili’s lawyers insisted that cash, amounting to more than €900,000, found in raids on her home and a hotel room where her father was staying, “was not from Qatar and was not any kickback from Qatar”.
“She did not do them any service. They didn’t need Kaili,” said Dimitrakopoulos, stressing that Kaili was acting as a “recipient of EU orders”.
“The emir of Qatar was already scheduled to address the European parliament in January 2023.”
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Kaili visited Abu Dhabi last month with Margaritis Schinas, a Greek conservative and European Commission vice-president.
After attending the World Cup’s opening ceremony in Qatar this month, Schinas tweeted: “Qatar, the first Arab and the smallest country ever to host the Cup, delivered reforms and merits a global success.”
While there is no suggestion that Schinas has behaved improperly, he has been criticised for praising Qatar’s standards at a time when its hosting of the World Cup has focused attention on its labour and human rights record. On Tuesday, he said: “Across the year, all my public statements on Qatar are fully, 100 per cent compatible with the position of the commission.”
Qatar offered many MEPs, including Kaili, World Cup tickets and luxurious free trips to persuade them to soften criticism of the treatment of migrant workers building stadiums.
Kaili met Qatar’s labour minister, Ali bin Samikh al-Marri, and praised the emirate for being a “frontrunner” on workers’ rights, despite the storm of criticism.
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In a sign that Kaili was turning on other suspects in the case, Dimitrakopoulos said that her husband, Francesco Giorgi, an EU parliamentary aide, could have “answers about the existence of this cash”, which included €150,000 found hidden in luxury luggage at their house in Brussels.
Giorgi, 35, who has links to the “Fight Impunity” human rights campaign group is being held in custody with Pier Antonio Panzeri, 67, a former Italian centre-left MEP and president of the influential campaign group.
“Her partner brought the money into the flat. It is not hers. There is no Qatar connection. Investigators are better off looking at Italy and Italians with dodgy operations, mainly NGOs [non-governmental organisation] in Africa,” said Dimitrakopoulos.
Italian arrest warrants, leaked to the press, have pointed to a figure known as the “giant” who funded a credit card held by Panzeri’s wife and daughter.
Yesterday MEPs voted to strip Kaili of her office as vice-president of the parliament before any judicial hearings on the charges against her.
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The Brussels lobbying watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory has warned that the EU’s “energy crisis may have aggravated the problem” of corruption. “The EU and a number of member state governments have clearly courted the Qatari regime to secure higher import of gas and oil in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Olivier Hoedeman, co-ordinator at the watchdog, said.
Emily O’Reilly, the ombudsman who investigates complaints about the conduct of the EU institutions, said the scandal was “a wake-up call”.
“Three years ago, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, promised to set up a new ethics committee, but none of the institutions have managed to move forward.”
