When the Qatargate scandal came to light on December 9, 2022, the very foundations of European institutions were shaken. Eva Kaili, the Greek vice president of the European Parliament, was arrested, along with four current and former members of the parliament, who were suspected of having received bribes from Qatar and Morocco, in exchange for their political support. More than €800,000 in cash was discovered at Kaili's home. There were viral images of the bundles piled up in a safe, in a Gucci bag, and even in improbable plastic bags – scenes worthy of a Netflix series.
While the Brussels investigation into this case of corruption and money laundering is still ongoing – the accused have denied any wrongdoing – the damage has been done. European elected representatives' integrity has been questioned, as has oversight of their activities. The European Parliament was not the impregnable fortress that European citizens had a right to expect, but an institution that was vulnerable to corruption and foreign influence. Yet looking beyond Qatargate, what can be said about other MEPs' compliance with the rules and laws?
An investigation spearheaded by the investigative journalism platform Follow The Money and conducted by a consortium of 24 European news organizations including Le Monde reveals that almost a quarter of the 704 MEPs who are currently in office have been involved in a breach of the law or the violation of a rule.
A total of 163 MEPs were involved in the 253 cases that were identified and verified, the vast majority of which concerned acts that took place during the current parliamentary term (2019-2024), whether these took place in their country or in the context of their term as an MEP. The cases are of varying degrees of seriousness, covering a broad spectrum from the sale of a stolen cell phone, to the embezzlement of European public funds, and even conspiracy to commit murder. Yet this record figure, which is unprecedented on a European scale, mainly comprises three types of scandals concerning subjects of major public interest: 45 of these cases have been linked to corruption, and in particular outright bribery (sixteen cases reported); 44 linked to fraud, embezzlement, or theft of resources; and 46 to bullying or sexual harassment – a problem the scale of which is under-reported, according to a recent investigation by news website Politico.
These figures are the result of a meticulous country-by-country statistical compilation of cases involving the 704 currently serving MEPs, as of January 18, 2024. They aggregate all the cases to which MEPs have been linked over the course of their careers, whether in the private or public spheres.
The investigation was coordinated by the Dutch investigative journalism platform Follow the Money, following a tried-and-tested methodology used in the Netherlands for integrity investigations. The methodology counts cases that have resulted in judicial convictions or sanctions of some other kind (such as fines, investigations or reprimands), but also those that have been clearly established by media investigations. The different types of scandal collected include corruption (both bribery and favoritism), fraud and theft of resources, conflicts of interest, improper use of authority, manipulation or misuse of information, waste and abuse of public funds, indecent treatment (ie. bullying) and sexual harassment. Never before had such data been aggregated at the European level.
The results of this investigation represent a minimum tally, as not all scandals are publicly reported, and crimes and misdemeanors are not prosecuted or sanctioned in the same way in France as they are in Hungary, where the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary not respected.
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