Politico: The European right cheers the Brussels scandal and exploits it politically

Far-right leaders in Europe launched a harsh attack on the European Union after the Brussels corruption scandal, represented by the imprisonment of the Greek Vice-President of the European Parliament, Eva Kayley, on charges of corruption in the framework of an investigation by a Belgian judge regarding large sums that Qatar may have paid to influence decisions within the European institution.

Europe’s right-wing leaders see the European Parliament’s troubles as evidence of the Union’s double standards in the rule of law.

As a result of the scandal involving Kylie, right-wingers such as Marine Le Pen, leader of the French National Rally, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Polish President Andrzej Duda are seeking to turn the scandal into a political weapon, as leverage in rule-of-law disputes with Brussels and stir up anti-EU sentiment, before the European Parliament elections in 2024.

The right-wing leaders considered that the corruption scandal, and the involvement of a prominent figure in the center-left, shows the contradiction of pro-European Union institutions that “oversaw massive corruption while lecturing them on how to run their countries”.

Senior EU officials, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Parliament Speaker Roberta Metsola, condemned the findings of the investigations in stark terms, and pledged to crack down on corruption in all EU institutions.

“We were dragged through the mud by a totally transparent and legal loan from a Czech-Russian bank,” Le Pen tweeted, referring to a €9 million loan her party took out in 2014.

Meanwhile, Qatar was handing out suitcases full of cash to all these supposedly corrupt people.

They are in the good camp.

For his part, a member of the National Assembly in the European Parliament and a close aide to Le Pen, Philippe Olivier, said that “the European Union should give lessons to the whole world,” tweeting: “The Union gives lessons to Hungary.

He’s giving lessons to Poland, he’s even giving lessons to the European Border Agency.

It would be much better to start cleaning his house”.

In Hungary, Orban, who is locked in a conflict with Brussels over the failures of the rule of law in his country, mocked the European Union in a tweet of his own, writing that parliament was “very concerned about corruption in Hungary”.

Likewise, Polish lawmakers from the ruling Law and Justice party, which also disagrees with Brussels over violations of the rule of law, made a similar note, noting that MEP Eva Kaili, the most prominent suspect in the Qatar corruption case, has been a staunch critic of their country.

“The European Parliament is not a transparent institution, and supporting socialists like Kyli exposes the values ​​of the European Parliament and makes a mockery of this institution of the European Union,” said Bogdan Rzonka, a member of the Law and Justice party.

Politico described the right-wing’s statements as hypocritical, and considered that their words and accusations were hollow, considering that some politicians on the left have acknowledged that these allegations, which so far concern members of parliament, will be harmful because they create equality between the socialists accused of taking money from Qatar and the rightists who took money from Russia!