"The Soccer World Cup in Qatar is proof that sports diplomacy can achieve a historic transformation (...), Qatar is a leader in the field of labor rights," defended the Greek socialist deputy Eva Kaili in the last debate in Parliament European Parliament on the situation of human rights in the country. Such an ardent defense of the emirate surprised many colleagues and workers at the institution, but to a certain extent: Kaili, who was arrested last Friday for her relationship with the alleged bribery scheme orchestrated by Qatar in Brussels, has always been a loose verse in the European socialist group.
Born in Thessaloniki in 1978, the official biography of Eva Kaili on the European Parliament website suggests a varied academic background (BA in Architecture and Civil Engineering from Aristotle University, Master's in International and European Affairs from Piraeus University and, more recently , a course at the Oxford Internet Leadership Academy) which he would currently be completing with a PhD in International Economic Policy at a Greek university.
Kaili's first job, however, was as a television presenter for the Greek network Mega TV, where she worked between 2004 and 2007, when she was elected to the Greek Parliament for PASOK, the historic Panhellenic Socialist Movement, with which she He had already collaborated in his university days. At that time, her country was about to recognize the existence of a macro hole in the State accounts that would put it on the verge of leaving the euro, but for her it was the beginning of a brilliant political career.
In 2011, the German weekly Der Spiegel included her in its list of personalities of the year for having opposed Prime Minister George Papandreou's initiative to call a referendum on the reforms that the Eurogroup demanded of him. She was the only Greek on the list in an annus horribilis in relations between Athens and Berlin. Kaili held her seat until 2012, when PASOK lost the election, at which time she went into the private sector as a consultant.
In 2013 she was appointed president of the Center for Gender Equality of the Ministry of the Interior of Greece and a year later she changed Athens for Brussels and Strasbourg by successfully presenting herself in the elections to the European Parliament. During her first term, Kaili dealt with issues related to science and technology and relations with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. The European Political portal included her in 2018 in its list of the most influential women in Brussels. She renewed her seat and in January of this year she was elected to occupy one of the fourteen vice-presidencies that the institution has.
This has been a tense legislature for the Greek delegation in the European Parliament as a result of the wiretapping and espionage scandal against journalists, businessmen and politicians of which the Greek conservative government is accused. Among the victims would be the MEP and leader of the Greek socialist party, Thanasis Koukakis. Sources from the Eurochamber recall the strangeness that some observers were surprised by the lukewarm defense that, during the parliamentary debates on the case in Brussels, Kaili made of his socialist colleague.
As vice-president, she has been very active in the internal discussions on controlling the expenses of the members of the institution. Each deputy receives 4,342 euros per month for administration expenses that they do not have to justify and this will continue to be the case in light of the latest reform of the control rules. Actually, only Vice President Heidi Hautala (Greens) opposed not increasing scrutiny on this item but Kaili, parliamentary sources explain, was outraged by the claim to require MEPs to justify their expenses and spoke of "lack of confidence" unacceptable.
In recent months, the Greek MEP, who has a one-year-old baby with Francesco Giorgi, an Italian who works as an adviser to the European Socialist group who was also arrested in the Friday morning raid in Brussels, has been very active. public. On October 30, she met in Doha with Labor Minister Ali bin Samikh Al-Marri, to whom she conveyed her support for Qatar's "continued commitment" to labor reforms. In November, she organized a forum on child safety on the internet that featured actor Ashton Kutcher, co-founder of the organization Thorn, dedicated to preventing the sexual exploitation of minors, as its star speaker, and she traveled to Washington as part of a parliamentary delegation.
Kaili, finally, began the week by presiding over an event on cryptocurrencies on Monday and ended it on Friday by being detained by agents of the anti-corruption unit of the Belgian Prosecutor's Office, who also arrested her father when he tried to flee with bags full of money. The Greek MEP and the other four detainees gave a statement yesterday before the investigating judge Michel Claise, a prestigious Belgian magistrate specializing in financial crime who today will decide whether to bring charges against them.
