Details of the corruption scandal that hit the European Parliament

The corruption scandal linked to the European Parliament and Qatar includes all the elements of a thriller in a police soap opera, featuring parliamentarians and their aides, most of whom are Italian.

Greek Eva Kylie will remain in pre-trial detention during the Christmas holidays as well.

The European Parliament dismissed its Vice-President, Eva Kylie, from her post, following the start of investigations into her role in the corruption scandal.

Like a Netflix crime thriller with all its elements, a smart and charismatic suspect, Eva Kylie, who skyrocketed from a Greek TV presenter to a vice-president of the European Parliament?

Charming, handsome, attractive, younger life partner, Francesco Giorgi, who works in the European Parliament.

Behind them is a former member of parliament, who is older, as the mastermind of the cell, Antonio Panzieri.

Even the families are involved in the case, Eva Kylie’s father, at her direction, was on his way to escape with a large suitcase full of cash.

Panziri’s wife and daughter were also aware of what happened, and they are expected to be handed over to the judicial authorities in Belgium.

Add to this a non-governmental organization founded by Panziri under the name Fighting Impunity, which worked as a pressure group in Brussels.

Its official mission is to hunt down war criminals.

However, in practice, it “provided services to a Gulf country,” as stated by the Belgian Public Prosecution.

The media is talking about Qatar, which just finished organizing the FIFA World Cup.

During several searches, Belgian investigators seized 1.5 million Euros in cash.

The accusations against the European parliamentarians and their assistants are, corruption, money laundering and the formation of a criminal group.

Eva Kylie has already delivered a speech praising Qatar before the European Parliament, and Kylie met with officials from the Gulf country.

There are indications of a role for Morocco as well.

Eva Kylie and her partner Francesco Giorgi, who also works in the European Parliament

And there are still new threads unfolding for this exciting issue, as if it sufficed for more than one season within the same series.

Among those who received money from the aforementioned NGO is the former Commissioner of the European Commission, Dimitris Avramopoulos, who received €60,000 as a reward for his voluntary work on the organization’s supervisory board.

Avramopoulos claims that he ended his work with the organization in early 2022.

He didn’t meet his former colleagues, commissioners in the European Commission, except for friendly talk, and not for any interests or lobbying work, as a spokesperson for the European Commission said.

Female and male politicians who are members of the Supervisory Board of the “Combating Evasion of Justice” organization announced their resignation from working with the organization and claimed that they had not received any money.

But as of Thursday 22 December, they were all still listed on the organization’s website as members of the supervisory board.

The European Commission maintains that the “Fight Against Impunity” organization didn’t receive funds from the Commission, nor is it registered in the lobbyist register, because it did not seek contact with the European Union commissioners.

Former MEP Antonio Panzeri – suspected of masterminding the cross-cutting crime of corruption

The lawyers for the Greek representative insist that their client is innocent of the charges.

However, due to the risk of evidence being concealed or tampered with, the investigating judge decided to place her in pretrial detention and extend it for an additional month.

The court didn’t give any other information in order to maintain the course of the investigation.

Lawyers are calling for Kylie’s release on the grounds that her two-year-old daughter needs her during the Christmas break, but the court wasn’t convinced by this argument.

The girl’s father, Eva Kylie’s life partner, was also placed in pretrial detention, and now the child was placed with her mother’s father, who wanted to smuggle the money in the big bag.

Some details of the scandal were leaked to the press.

Lawyers for the main defendants protested.

Eva Kayley’s life partner took all responsibility and involved the rest of the defendants with him, to clear his life partner’s arena, who conveyed to the court through her lawyer that she feels that her partner “hid everything from her”.

She declared that she didn’t know that there were large amounts of cash in her apartment.

The Belgian police present the money they seized from the suspects – 1.5 million Euros.

Belgian investigators haven’t yet released details of the corruption and money laundering accusations, and how the money arrived.

While the State of Qatar denied any bribery of European politicians.

A Qatari diplomat in Brussels hinted that the Belgian investigations could harm interests and commercial deals with the wealthy Gulf emirate.

With great speed and a unified position, the European Parliament responded to what was revealed, by dismissing Eva Kylie from her position as Vice-President of the Parliament.

The Socialist Bloc in the European Parliament, as well as the Greek Socialist Party, to which Kylie belongs, also expelled her.

The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, also announced reforms to the work of lobbyists in Parliament.

Parliament has also postponed talks on Qatar’s accession to the Schengen area, also froze contacts with the circles and politicians in Qatar, which was criticized by the Qatari side.

Eva Kylie met with Qatari Labor Minister Ali bin Samikh al Marri in Doha, and the Gulf state rejects all allegations of its involvement in the scandal.

Some European heads of state and government spoke at the European summit last week about the scandal and the shock it caused.

The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, confirmed that European institutions are working with the Belgian security and judicial authorities and will continue to work with them, to uncover “the evil elements within them that are linked to authoritarian countries, and to uncover the suspected criminal network”.

Meanwhile, the accusations widened to include an international trade union official, who was previously in contact with the “Fight Impunity” organization, and said that he had received a donation of about 50,000 Euros from the organization, some of which was to pay for his campaign to become Secretary-General of the International Trade Union Confederation.

The indictment also includes two other Italian deputies in the European Parliament and ten assistants, most of whom are Italians.

Another NGO, also founded by former MEP Panziri, is under scrutiny by investigators.

Until all the circumstances of the case are revealed, it may take months or even years.