Meeting in Strasbourg, the plenary session of the European Parliament listened with regret this Monday to the interventions of the heads of the political groups on the bribery scandal that the Belgian justice has uncovered in their ranks.
The institutional tone dominated the speeches. But by the end of the week, the collective embarrassment over the revelations had turned to pure internal political battle. In 2024 there are elections to the European Parliament and, although the main fight of the institution will be to motivate voters to go to the polls, after the initial shock, the parties begin to make their own calculations.
On Monday the commotion still prevailed. "The damage that this has done to European democracy is too great to use for political party battles," Manfred Weber, the leader of the European People's Party in the House group, told an embarrassed and angry chamber. On Wednesday, Dutch MEP Jeroen Lenaers delivered a similar message on behalf of the EPP: “The news of the last few days looks like a bad series on Netflix”, but “it is not, it is the ugly reality of corruption at the highest level in the heart of European democracy. So, Leaners concluded, “make no mistake, the actions of those who take home bags of money undermine the credibility of all of us. It is up to us, all together, to repair the damage caused."
Just 24 hours later, the PPE analysis had radically changed. “The self-righteous Socialist group are at the epicenter of Qatargate and it is time for them to be held accountable,” the EPP tweeted late on Thursday using terms such as “hypocrisy”, “accountability” and “permissiveness”. "This scandal has a name and it is not Qatargate, this is a scandal of the socialists", not an "institutional" problem. The turn in the strategy of the great European conservative family, also chaired by Weber, occurred hours after the passing of the heads of State and Government and the heads of the opposition for the EPP summit in Brussels, where the Greek Kyriakos Mitsotakis – and other leaders, according to party sources – told his colleagues that they should take a more aggressive stance on the case.
The Qatargate, a plot that in reality, allegedly, stems from a bribery network in favor of Morocco, has shaken the political landscape in Greece, the country of origin of Eva Kaili, the Socialist MEP and EP vice-president detained since 9 December in Brussels. Mitsotakis, prime minister since 2019, is badly weakened by a scandal involving wiretapping of politicians and journalists known as the Greek Watergate and could call early elections next spring.
The reasoning of the conservative leaders is simple: why take the blame for a scandal in which, a priori, they are not involved? Why accept that everyone is equally suspicious? A couple of hours after the swerve in the EPP strategy against the scandal, the European Public Prosecutor's Office formally requested the lifting of the immunity of two Greek MEPs, the socialist Kaili and one of the EPP, Maria Spyraki. Many gasped at the announcement, but in reality, it refers to a much smaller matter than Qatargate: suspected fraud in the “use of parliamentary allowances”, the payment of parliamentary assistants. “The two cases have nothing to do with it”, the PPE reaffirms.
Sources from the European socialist group consulted criticize the change in strategy of the European conservatives. "We have seen serious contradictions in the leader of the PPE, Mafred Weber, who during his speech in plenary session spoke about the fact that we are not dealing with a matter of parties and in less than 24 hours, through a tweet, pointed out from his direct formation and aggressively to group S
Unity between the political groups will be key for the European Parliament to carry out the "major reforms" announced this week by its president, Roberta Metsola, also a member of the EPP, to regain citizen confidence. Here, too, fissures begin to emerge. One of the lessons that the PPE draws from Qatargate. While Metsola talks about better controlling urgent resolutions, statements about last-minute crises in non-EU countries, her political family proposes to "ban" them completely, alleging "doubts" about "the integrity of the foreign policy positions" expressed. The lack of time translates into a lack of control over these texts. They are not very relevant at the level of European foreign policy, but very important for certain countries, especially when governments are exposed to criticism.
"For a long time they have wanted to destroy the resolutions on foreign policy" and on human rights, criticize sources from the Greens regarding the attitude of the PPE of "who are we to give lessons to anyone". All the groups agree, however, that it is necessary to better monitor who is involved in their negotiations. Just this week there was a case study on the risks of informal contacts between MEPs and foreign governments, with the resolution calling for the release of an activist in Bahrain. The EPP negotiator was Tomáš Zdechovský, he proposed changes to the text to soften it. His belonging to the friendship group with that country raised suspicions about his interests. Metsola is going to propose a ban on these potentially dangerous friendships.
