Europe’s energy poverty has been fully understood by Qatar, which released the following statement as soon as the retaliatory measures were announced following the Qatargate discovery.
The attempt to impose sanctions on Qatar on the occasion of Qatargate seems to be a noose around the neck of Europe, because its energy dependence gives “pressure” to the Persian Gulf state to blackmail it, threatening retaliation on natural gas, as the Gatestone Institute finds .
Belgian federal police recently found €150,000 in cash at the home of European Parliament Vice-President Eva Kaili (Panhellenic Socialist Movement) in Brussels, who was subsequently arrested and charged with corruption.
He remains in prison.
The Circle of The Arrested
Luca Vicentini, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, and former Socialist MEP Pier-Antonio Panzeri were also arrested.
Francesco Giorgi, Kaili’s partner and former parliamentary aide to Panzeri, was also arrested.
The home of MEP Marc Tarabella (Socialist Party) was also searched.
Notably, Panzeri is the president of the NGO “Fight Impunity”, of which Giorgi is one of the founders.
Niccolò Figà -Talamanca was also taken into custody, according to Italian news network Ansa.
Figà -Talamanca is the executive director of another NGO, No Peace Without Justice, which is based in Rome and Brussels and ostensibly focuses on international criminal justice, human rights and democracy promotion in North and Middle Africa. East.
It also happens to have the same address in Brussels as Fight Impunity: 41 rue Ducale.
According to media reports and in connection with the presumption of innocence, this elite of European socialism and trade unionism is being bribed by Qatar in order to praise the emirate’s “progress” in the field of “labor law” and according to the New York Times:
“The case, which Belgian authorities say they have been building for more than a year with the help of their secret services, exposed what prosecutors say was a bribery scheme at the heart of the European Union.
And it highlighted the vulnerabilities in an opaque, notoriously bureaucratic system that decides policy for 450 million people in the world’s richest club of nations.”
Faced with this information, the first reaction of a large number of Europeans, judging by social media, was a feeling of humiliation.
That a small country like Qatar could so easily bribe the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, to the point of making it say the opposite of what it stood for a week earlier, is indeed disappointing.
Why Did All This Happen? The Facts
The FIFA World Cup stadiums in Qatar were built in conditions described as “hell of slavery”.
For ten years, armies of Asian laborers worked for miserable wages, in squalid living conditions.
According to the Guardian, since the emirate was awarded the World Cup, 6,500 workers have died on construction sites in Qatar.
This carnage did not set Qatar up for praise from the Socialist Group in the European Parliament.
The change in Tarabella’s speech, for example, was striking.
From initially hostile to World Cup host Qatar, Tarabella suddenly became its advocate on TV: “Qatar has made remarkable efforts in terms of labor rights,” the Socialist MEP told LN24 on 11 December.
“Qatar, with the help of NGOs, the International Labor Organization… has made clear progress, which is now welcome…
The message to say we will boycott is a bad message.
Why;
Because it means that even if they have made progress, notably in relation to workers’ welfare, housing benefits, a decent minimum wage, working conditions where, during the hot summer months, people no longer work between ten in the morning and 3.30 p.m., and the abandonment of work … not everything is perfect in Qatar, I repeat … if, despite all this, you boycott, you give the signal that the efforts being made are useless.”
Kaili visited Qatar in person and praised the emirate’s “labor reforms”.
According to the local press, Kaili said she represented 500 million European citizens who believe that “Qatar’s progress represents shared values”.
Are members of the European Parliament in financial need? – The Kaili case is not an isolated incident
An MEP earns €13,944 gross per month, including expense allowance, plus €4,716 per year for travel expenses and €338 for each day of attendance at meetings of Parliament’s bodies.
Usually, though, such thoughts are irrelevant.
People are generally prone to bribes.
“While this may be the most egregious case of alleged corruption the European Parliament has seen in many years,” explained Michiel van Hulten, director of Transparency International EU, “it is not an isolated incident.”
“Over many decades, Parliament has allowed a culture of impunity to develop, with a combination of lax fiscal rules and controls and a complete lack of independent (or indeed any) ethics oversight.
In many ways it has become a law unto itself.
Any serious attempt to improve accountability is blocked by the ruling Bureau of Parliament, with the consent of the majority of MPs and that integrity should only apply to others…
As a first step, the European Commission should now publish its long-delayed proposal to create an independent EU ethics body, with investigative and enforcement powers.”
That the Socialist Group, the second largest in the European Parliament, was so easily bribed by little Qatar, to the point of cheering the “labor law reforms” of a slave emirate, has yet to be confirmed by the courts.
It is also probably just the ‘tip of the iceberg’.
Other geopolitical actors known to be interested in European Parliament resolutions have even more important tools at their disposal.
This case also reveals – if it were still necessary – the extreme energy malaise of the European continent.
For 20 years, Europe has been systematically destroying the only truly European source of energy produced — nuclear power, and has refused to even consider exploiting the underground shale gas that is so abundant in some European regions.
As a result, Europe finds itself in a state of extreme dependence on the regimes, generally authoritarian, that supply it with its natural gas.
That means Russia and, increasingly, Qatar.
The situation was fully understood by Qatar, which released the following statement as soon as the retaliatory measures were announced following the Qatargate discovery:
“The decision to impose… a discriminatory restriction limiting dialogue and cooperation in Qatar before the legal process is over will negatively impact regional and global security cooperation, as well as ongoing discussions around global energy poverty and security”.
This article is originally published on bankingnews.gr