The “Qatargate” is certainly the most spectacular scandal in the history of the European Parliament. The arrest of a vice-president, the seizure of millions of euros and whole suitcases of tickets, the manipulation of votes, parliamentary hearings and the infiltration of negotiations compete with a scenario of House of Cards.
But we are unfortunately not in front of a chills fiction. We are faced with the very real symptom of a chronic disease of European institutions: the systemic culture and organization of impunity as well as the opacity that leaves the door wide open to all interference.
It is of course shocking that Qatar bought the silence of the European Union on the death exploitation of thousands of workers. But this dark affair is only the emerged part of the iceberg of a vast system of corruption established at the origin of Morocco and probably involving Mauritania and protagonists of different political labels.
Beyond this sprawling scandal, “Qatargate” reveals the deep flaws of the very integrity of European institutions, which take advantage of third states as private companies to parasitize the factory of the law.
opacity
Let us take for example the problem of “rotating doors”. Lobbies and companies recruit hundreds of agents in the ranks of European institutions without real control. The commission is struggling today to explain why it authorized the ex-commissioner Avramopoulos to join the false non-governmental organization Fight Impunity, where it was paid 60,000 euros. As for Parliament, he is corrupt by one of his former deputies who was able to come and go without control and create a crooked association without registering it in the transparency register.
Opacity provides corrupters with the darkness they need to act. I experienced it during the negotiation of the resolution on the World Cup that I torn off a few days before the scandal burst. Well out of sight, socialist and right deputies were able to refuse to recognize the responsibility of Qatar and call into question the thousands of deaths on construction sites. This opacity rages just as much to the Commission when Ursula von der Leyen refuses to publish her SMS of negotiations with the CEO of Pfizer. And it is even more the norm to the Council where the member states make the law behind closedy without having to assume even their vote on the texts discussed.
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