The EU thread

[celedhring]

Sad I didn't learnt about this hot Greek EP Vice President until she's been arrested for corruption. Apparently they also caught her dad running away with bags full of cash 

Anyway, I suppose a positive takeaway is that foreign governments believe the EP is relevant enough to bribe MEPs.

[HVC]

She looks so trustworthy.

[HVC]

Also, what did Qatar want?

[Sheilbh]

Belgian police has detained a number of current and former MEPs on suspicion of taking bribes from Qatar.

Seems quite big - the striking thing is the way they've been using NGOs. I suspect there's a lot more of that going on. I thought this Q&A summary was helpful:

Qatar scandal: What just happened at the European Parliament?
POLITICO answers all your questions about the influence scandal rocking Brussels.
By Sarah Wheaton
December 11, 2022 4:04 am CET

Watchdogs say it could be the "most serious," "most shocking," "most egregious" corruption scandal to hit Brussels in years.

A series of at least 16 raids by the Belgian federal police Friday netted five people they said had committed "alleged offenses of criminal organization, corruption and money laundering." The morning searches yielded €600,000 in cash, plus phones and computers.

Initially, the culprits weren't major names by Brussels standards: A former member of the European Parliament, a few parliamentary assistants, and a trade union boss, all allegedly on the take for World Cup host Qatar. But to what end, really? Some questioned whether �— if the charges were true — Doha had really made a smart investment.

By the evening, however, it was clear this wasn't just a story of some has-beens and wannabes lining their pockets. Eva Kaili, a vice president of the European Parliament and vocal defender of Doha, landed in police custody, according to the Belgian federal police. The case also centers around an NGO that, until recently, counted some of the biggest luminaries in left-wing politics among its board members.

"The State of Qatar categorically rejects any attempts to associate it with accusations of misconduct," said a Qatari official in a statement e-mailed Sunday morning.

As this potentially superlative scandal continues to unfold, POLITICO answers all your questions about the controversy roiling the EU capital.

Q: Who is Eva Kaili?

As one of Parliament's 14 vice presidents, Kaili is one of the institution's most powerful players — and as a former news presenter with celebrity status in her native Greece, one of Brussels' most glamorous figures.

But Kaili has also emerged as one of the most vocal defenders of Qatar. She recently called the country a "frontrunner in labor rights" after meeting with the country's labor minister, despite deep international concerns about conditions for stadium construction workers. A member of the center-left Socialist & Democrat (S&D) party, her portfolio includes special responsibilities related to the Middle East.

Kaili's partner and co-parent, Francesco Giorgi, has also been detained, according to police and people with direct knowledge. He's an adviser on the Middle East and North Africa region in the European Parliament — and a founder of an NGO called Fight Impunity, which aims to promote "accountability as a central pillar of the architecture of international justice."

Crucially, Fight Impunity's president is Pier Antonio Panzeri, a central figure in the case.

Q: Who else is involved?

Panzeri, an Italian ex-MEP also from the S&D, was among those arrested Friday morning. By the evening, his wife and daughter were also nabbed by Italian police. A warrant for their arrest, seen by POLITICO, accused Panzeri of "intervening politically with members working at the European Parliament for the benefit of Qatar and Morocco."

Former parliamentary aides, especially those with ties to Fight Impunity, are also falling under scrutiny. In addition to arresting Giorgi, police also sealed the office of another parliamentary assistant who used to work for Fight Impunity, currently serving as an aide to Belgian S&D MEP Marie Arena.

Arena, who inherited the chairmanship of the human rights subcommittee from Panzeri and works closely with Fight Impunity, confirmed that her aide's office was under seal. Arena said she herself has not been questioned by police.

According to Italian newswire Ansa, Niccolò Figà-Talamanca has also been detained. He's the director general of another NGO, No Peace Without Justice. Focused on international criminal justice, human rights and promoting democracy in the Middle East and North Africa, the organization is officially based in New York and Rome. However, it has the same Brussels address as Fight Impunity, at 41 Rue Ducale.

Emma Bonino, a former liberal MEP and foreign affairs minister for Italy, founded No Peace Without Justice. She is listed as an honorary board member of Fight Impunity. She and Figà-Talamanca did not immediately respond to requests for comment through Peace Without Justice.

In a sign of Panzeri's connections, former French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, former European Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, former EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and former MEP Cecilia Wikström are also listed as honorary board members.

Mogherini resigned from the board on Saturday morning, according to a spokesperson for the College of Europe, where Mogherini is now rector. Avramopoulos said in an email Sunday morning that he, Cazeneuve and Wikström had also resigned "immediately when we were informed back on Friday."

The list of staff at Fight Impunity has apparently been deleted; however, web archives show Giorgi and other current parliamentary assistants holding key roles in January.

Q: Is this limited to the European Parliament?

Nope. Also detained: Luca Visentini, who just last month became secretary general of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Before that, he was the longtime chief of the European Trade Union Confederation. (He didn't have to move for the new role: Both the global and the European organizations are based at the same address in Brussels, on Rue Albert II.)

Builders' unions have been some of the top critics of Qatar's record on worker's rights in the lead-up to the World Cup. But even before Visentini took over, ITUC was a notable exception. Sharan Burrow, the previous ITUC chief, urged external critics of the country's labor laws to "go and have a look at a look at the change" in a video posted by the Qatari labor ministry in June.

Q: Why would Qatar want to lobby?

The Gulf emirate is hosting the World Cup, but rather than a public relations coup, the tournament turned out to shine a negative spotlight on the country. Accusations of bribery in the bidding process and slave-like conditions for foreign workers cast doubt on the choice, and liberal critics seized on the moment to attack the conservative Muslim country's position on women's and LGBTQ+ rights.

Maintaining a good reputation is crucial, as Qatar works to hash out deals with EU countries for its natural gas. A proposal to give Qataris visa-free travel to the EU's Schengen area is also moving forward in Parliament — at least, it was.

Q: How has Kaili advocated for Qatar?

Kaili has arguably been the dean of the (sizeable group of) Doha defenders within the S&D.

On November 24, for example, as the plenary passed a resolution "deplor[ing] the deaths of thousands of migrant workers," Kaili took to the floor to praise the "historical transformation" of Qatar brought on by the World Cup. Similarly, 10 days ago, she showed up to vote in favor of visa liberalization for Qatar and Kuwait in the Parliament's justice and home affairs committee — even though she's not a member of the committee.

Kaili also alienated MEPs on a panel dedicated to the Middle East when she freelanced her own trip after Doha canceled the group's visit. The Parliament's Delegation for Relations With the Arab Peninsula (DARP) had been planning to head to Qatar just ahead of the World Cup in November, to visit tournament facilities and observe labor law changes.

With barely a month's notice, however, Qatar's consultative assembly, known as the Shura Council, asked to postpone. Instead, Kaili went to Qatar the week the full delegation was supposed to be there — and gave full-throated praise to the emirate's labor reforms. According to local press, she said she was there representing 500 million European citizens who see the country's progress as representing common values.

"She was somehow going behind my back," said MEP Hannah Neumann, the German Green at the helm of DARP. Doha was "uninviting the group that would have had a balanced position" and "instead invited her, knowing that her statements would be less critical."

Repeated calls to Kaili's mobile phone Friday and Saturday went unanswered.

 Q: How big a deal is this?

Watchdog groups agree on the superlatives. The Qatar scandal could be "the most egregious case" of alleged corruption Parliament has seen in years, said Transparency International chief Michiel van Hulten. Alberto Alemanno, a law professor at HEC Paris, called it the "most shocking integrity scandal in the history of the EU."

German Green MEP Daniel Freund, co-chair of the Parliament's anti-corruption intergroup, called it one of the "most serious corruption scandals in Brussels in recent decades."

Van Hulten said the Parliament has created a "culture of impunity ... with a combination of lax financial rules and controls and a complete lack of independent (or indeed any) ethics oversight." Alemmano likewise predicted this would just be the "tip of the iceberg," hoping a pile-up of scandals would create political momentum for an independent ethics system.

Q. What are people saying can be done about it?

The Commission is due to propose an independent ethics body that would apply to all EU institutions, but it almost certainly will not come with investigative or enforcement power.

Freund argued that countries that are not part of the EU should have to follow the "relatively good lobbying rules already in force" in Brussels. At the moment, countries don't have to register in the EU's transparency register of interest groups, for example, and MEPs don't need to report those contacts. "The EU must improve this immediately," Freund said.

Incidentally, Panzeri's NGO, Fight Impunity, is not listed in the transparency register. That's an apparent violation of the existing rules for EU-based groups that want to make their case in Parliament. Under the latest transparency register guidelines, NGOs are required to include extensive details about their funding.

Arena, the current chair of the human rights subcommittee, has worked closely with Panzeri and Fight Impunity, including the NGO in press conferences and traveling with Panzeri for discussions on civil liberties.

Even as she defended her own independence, Arena predicted that more revelations would come out. "If Qatar is doing so, I know that others are doing exactly the same," Arena said. "And so we have to really prevent this kind of capacity to influence."

Q: How's it going now for Qatar?

The blowback from these accusations is already coming fast.

The S&D has called for the visa liberalization proposal to be put on hold, and the Green rapporteur said he would vote against the measure if it comes up for a vote next week.

Separately, Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee planned to head to Saudi Arabia and Qatar in the coming weeks. Now the latter part has been canceled — meaning a top rival of Doha gets all the attention. 

"Any association of the Qatari government with the reported claims is baseless and gravely misinformed," said the Qatari official statement issued Sunday. "The State of Qatar works through institution-to-institution engagement and operates in full compliance with international laws and regulations."

Q: What's next in the Parliament?

Late Saturday, Parliament President Roberta Metsola suspended all of Kaili's "powers, duties and tasks" related to being a vice president. To revoke the title completely would require a decision by the Parliament's conference of presidents, and then a vote in the plenary.

When the plenary gathers in Strasbourg this week, MEPs are likely to revoke Kaili's parliamentary immunity. The Left has already formally called for a debate about the incident to be added to the agenda, with a vote slated for Monday evening.

Kaili has also been suspended from the S&D group and her domestic party in Greece, Pasok.

Eddy Wax, Nektaria Stamouli, Hannah Roberts and Vincent Manancourt contributed reporting.

I'd add I totally disagree that there's relatively good lobbying rules. Only senior MEPs are required to report meetings with lobbyists, I believe that something crazy like under 100 staff working for the Commission (including the Commissioners) are required to declare their meeting with lobbyists.

That level of mandatory reporting was only instituted in 2019. Voluntary declarations vary wildly by country and political group (the Greens are very good).

Totally agree with the sense, though, that Qatar won't be the only state doing this.

[viper37]

She looks so trustworthy.

At first, I thought it was a picture of Tricia Hellfer and I was wondering what it was doing in that thread.

[Tonitrus]

She looks like the type that would have pointy elbows.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

At first, I thought it was a picture of Tricia Hellfer and I was wondering what it was doing in that thread.

You aren't the only one...

[Sheilbh]

Looks like it might be spreading to the Commission now with questions about Margaritis Schinas, who's one of the Commission's vice-presidents and Commissioner for Promoting our European Way of Life (the one they had to change the job title from "Protecting our European Way of Life" given that it's the migration portfolio).

Apparently he'd been pushing Kaili to be getting top jobs, as had the Greek PM, despite the fact that they're from New Democracy while she's from PASOK. He'd also made very similar statements to Kaili about Kuwait and Qatar's "remarkable success".

[Duque de Bragança]

Looks like it might be spreading to the Commission now with questions about Margaritis Schinas, who's one of the Commission's vice-presidents and Commissioner for Promoting our European Way of Life (the one they had to change the job title from "Protecting our European Way of Life" given that it's the migration portfolio).

Apparently he'd been pushing Kaili to be getting top jobs, as had the Greek PM, despite the fact that they're from New Democracy while she's from PASOK. He'd also made very similar statements to Kaili about Kuwait and Qatar's "remarkable success".

Good to see some left and right consensus once in a while. 

[Crazy_Ivan80]

but is anyone really surprised about the corruption?

[Duque de Bragança]

By Qatar or of corruption in general?

No.

[Sheilbh]

Strong piece on the IRA conundrum for Europe - and I totally agree. It feels like on almost every issue the problem the EU finds itself in is discovering the French were right, but it might be too late/there's still not enough support to fix it

EU becomes the planet's biggest NIMBY over US climate bill
Brussels should stop complaining about Joe Biden's subsidies plan and 'get its act together,' says European Investment Bank boss.
By Karl Mathiesen
December 9, 2022 4:47 pm CET

Europe finally got what it wanted: An American president who is serious about tackling climate change. Then it turned into the world's biggest NIMBY.

After an initially muted response to Joe Biden's law that will spend an estimated $369 billion on energy and climate change — the first significant climate legislation ever passed by the U.S. Congress — Europe went into full freak-out mode over subsidies it said would harm its industry.

The pique from Brussels has raised eyebrows in Washington, coming as it does after years of unconcealed EU frustration at the U.S. failure to pass meaningful laws and spend the billions needed to cut its greenhouse gas emissions. Industry representatives and analysts said that by attacking the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Europe was missing the broader point: that this is what a serious industrial policy for climate change looks like.

"The counter argument there is, of course, wouldn't it be great if the Europeans could get their act together," Werner Hoyer, the president of the European Investment Bank, told POLITICO on the sidelines of the COP27 climate talks last month. "I mean, we are complaining about the Americans and ... we have a tendency to look inward more and more. And we take actions on the present energy crisis which are totally dictated by national considerations. And that costs us, as a European Union, a huge degree of credibility."

The message coming back across the Atlantic is, "Europe ... you are being ridiculous," said Max Bergmann, a former senior U.S. State Department official who now leads the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "You have to start questioning, what are the priorities of European leaders? Is it to tackle the climate crisis? Or is it just the bottom line of one of their automakers ... and a bunch of bureaucrats ... that are just obsessed with maintaining free trade?"

The economic ramifications in Europe are somewhat wider than that. The IRA's subsidies for U.S.-built clean tech are far more generous than anything on offer in the EU. They are also technically limitless, meaning the amount to be paid out in tax credits and other instruments is only capped by demand.

In response, the companies that were supposed to build European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's Green Deal are now prioritizing the investments needed to make Biden's vision of a clean jobs boom a reality.

Swedish battery developer Northvolt said it was pausing a German factory expansion and looking to the U.S. instead. Germany's Bosch has invested just shy of half a billion dollars in American electric motor and battery production since the IRA was passed in the summer. Swiss solar component manufacturer Meyer Burger is opening a plant in Arizona, raising questions about expansion of its German operations. Spanish utility Iberdrola just released a three-year €47 billion investment plan of which 47 percent will be spent in the U.S. Just 23 percent is heading for the EU.

In response, Europe lashed out. French President Emmanuel Macron called the subsidies anti-competitive and sought changes to the law from Congress (a prospect ruled out by the White House) and threatened action in the World Trade Organization. European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton canceled his attendance at this week's U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council. A joint task force has been set up to explore options for accommodating Europe.

The implication that Europe was being targeted was wrong, Bergmann said. Most likely, the impact on Europe was simply not considered by the senators and the teams who drafted the bill.

"If the U.S. was intending to send a massive diplomatic F.U. to Europe through a climate bill, Europe would know," he said.

Victims' angst

But Europe's sense of victimization abides. The energy crisis means Europe sees itself as shouldering the burden of Russia's war while U.S. companies bank windfalls from LNG exports. EU Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans muttered darkly about the threat to a transatlantic relationship that underpinned "our security ... our values" on a call with reporters last month.

EU angst over the IRA ignores the fact that the main target of its home-grown provisions was China, a competitor the European bloc has failed to counter. Now both the U.S and China have assertive industrial strategies that recognize the massive upfront costs of the energy transition and the fact that they are both in a sprint to dominate the economy of the future.

Europe sees itself as the "global front-runner," as von der Leyen put it in a recent speech in Bruges, Belgium. In fact, it's on the brink of losing the race.

The EU is at a disadvantage to its superpower nation-state competitors. The bloc's industrial policy is fragmented across its 27 countries. The energy crisis has widened those gaps and added an additional hurdle of extreme operating costs for any prospective new project. For years the EU has relied overly on carbon pricing as its key tool for stamping out emissions, unable or unwilling to wield capital as a weapon.

"The continent's limited ability to develop a centralized industrial strategy, or implement any kind of local content requirements, lends itself poorly to making up for lost ground when it is already far behind," said an October analysis from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), shared with POLITICO.

BNEF found that just building the factories to supply the refined metals, electrolyzers and parts for solar panels and batteries to meet local demand by 2030 will cost $149 billion in Europe, $113 billion in the U.S.  The IRA lowers the risk of those investments through tax credits, introduces deficit checks and payments to polluting industries to shut them down.


"The EU should mimic these design principles rather than bleating about the protectionist elements," said Tim Sahay, senior policy manager at the Green New Deal Network.

Unlike many of its politicians, Europe's big green industrial players quite like the IRA and do plan to invest in the U.S. But that doesn't mean they are all jumping ship. The EU's legally-mandated climate goals mean "the ambition in Europe is not in question," said Iberdrola Executive Chairman Ignacio Galán. But the investment environment in Europe was unattractive long before the IRA.

"The energy transition needs clarity from policymakers everywhere," said Galán. "We need unity and ambition on energy policy to tackle the current crisis. By working together to simplify and adapt its policy frameworks, Europe can rebalance the playing field and remain a global leader in attracting investment in clean energy."

'What's done is done'

The mood music from Brussels shifted a little in recent days, as von der Leyen acknowledged that the IRA was "positive news" for the climate and that EU might need to loosen its state aid rules and provide "new and additional funding at the EU level."

"What's done is done," Breton said at a POLITICO gala dinner on Wednesday. "We have to do our own job here, to protect our companies if we need to, without entering in a subsidies race."

The hope that the transatlantic rift might signal a new dawn for green tech in Europe is clear from the optimism suddenly coursing through the solar industry, which has long been the sector's unloved cousin.

Solar is often held up as a warning for all of Europe's clean industries. Technology developed in the EU was used to build a Chinese industry that today dominates 80-95 percent of the global supply chain.

On the surface the IRA's subsidies should erode the prospects for European solar even further. But the sense in the industry is that it might have finally broken the EU's slavish adherence to carbon pricing and innovation as its main drivers of transition.

A more active industrial policy, combined with a refreshed zeal for bringing industries home to secure supply chains, could mean that even solar has a second coming in Europe, said Solar Power Europe Policy Director Dries Acke.

Solar was one of five industries highlighted in the Clean Tech Europe platform launched this month by the European Commission. This was not on the cards before the IRA. On Friday, the Commission launched a European Solar Industry Alliance.

"It's been the wake-up call that Europe needs," said Acke.

Joshua Posaner contributed reporting.

Hopefully the French win their arguments because I feel that in an age of super-power competition and capital hungry energy transition, complaining to the WTO about protectionism won't quite cut it. Frankly nothing's made me feel we're heading into something similar to a new cold war more than this article/story.

[Valmy]

Sorry Euros. Politics in the USA today demands protectionism and jobs for Americans for any intiative. That was a crucial outcome of the 2016 election. The Democrats are terrified of losing more working class votes to right wing demagogues.

[Sheilbh]

Sorry Euros. Politics in the USA today demands protectionism and jobs for Americans for any intiative. That was a crucial outcome of the 2016 election. The Democrats are terrified of losing more working class votes to right wing demagogues.

Also I think it's basically right in terms of China policy and climate

It would be really bad for the US (or the EU) to rely on Chinese manufacturing for energy transition - and the way to get votes in Congress for things that help the climate is to make it create jobs in the US, tie into US national security v China, or both.

[Sheilbh]

On the scandal Belgian police have now seized €1.5 million - from what I've read that all seems linked to Kaili alone. 10 offices in Strasbourg have also been sealed for investigation as well as more raids in Brussels.

From Politico earlier:

A few bad apples or a whole rotten barrel? Brussels wrestles with corruption scandal
Some EU officials are adamant the Qatar corruption probe concerns 'a few individuals.' Others say the rot goes much deeper.
By Nicholas Vinocur and Nicolas Camut   
December 13, 2022 4:00 am CET

As Belgian police launched a second wave of raids on the European Parliament, a stunned Brussels elite has started to grapple with an uncomfortable question at the heart of the Qatar bribery investigation: Just how deep does the rot go?

So far, police inquiries launched by Belgian prosecutor Michel Claise have landed four people in jail, including Parliament Vice President Eva Kaili, on charges of corruption, money laundering and participation in a criminal organization.

After the initial shock of those arrests wore off, several Parliament officials told POLITICO they believed the allegations would be limited to a "few individuals" who had gone astray by allegedly accepting hundreds of thousands of euros in cash from Qatari interests.

But that theory was starting to unravel by Monday evening, as Belgian police carried out another series of raids on Parliament offices just as lawmakers were gathering in Strasbourg, one of European Parliament's two sites, for their first meeting after news of the arrests broke on Friday.

With 19 residences and offices searched — in addition to Parliament — six people arrested and sums of at least around €1 million recovered, some EU officials and activists said they believed more names would be drawn into the widening dragnet — and that the Qatar bribery scandal was symptomatic of a much deeper and more widespread problem with corruption not just in the European Parliament, but across all the EU institutions.

In Parliament, lax oversight of members' financial activities and the fact that states were able to contact them without ever logging the encounters in a public register amounts to a recipe for corruption, these critics argued.

Beyond the Parliament, they pointed to the revolving door of senior officials who head off to serve private interests after a stint at the European Commission or Council as proof that tougher oversight of institutions is in order. Others invoked the legacy of the Jacques Santer Commission — which resigned en masse in 1998 — as proof that no EU institution is immune from illegal influence.

"The courts will determine who is guilty, but what's certain is that it's not just Qatar, and it's not just the individuals who have been named who are involved" in foreign influence operations, Raphaël Glucksmann, a French lawmaker from the Socialists and Democrats, who heads a committee against foreign interference in Parliament, told POLITICO in Strasbourg.

Michiel van Hulten, a former lawmaker who now heads Transparency International's EU office, said that while egregious cases of corruption involving bags of cash were rare, "it's quite likely that there are names in this scandal that we haven't heard from yet. There is undue influence on a scale we haven't seen so far. It doesn't need to involve bags of cash. It can involve trips to far-flung destinations paid for by foreign organizations — and in that sense there is a more widespread problem."

Adding to the problem was the fact that Parliament has no built-in protections for internal whistleblowers, despite having voted in favor of such protections for EU citizens, he added. Back in 1998, it was a whistleblower denouncing mismanagement in the Santer Commission who precipitated a mass resignation of the EU executive.

Glucksmann also called for "extremely profound reforms" to a system that allows lawmakers to hold more than one job, leaves oversight of personal finances up to a self-regulating committee staffed by lawmakers, and gives state actors access to lawmakers without having to register their encounters publicly.

"If Parliament wants to get out of this, we'll have to hit hard and undertake extremely profound reforms," added Glucksmann, who previously named Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan as countries that have sought to influence political decisions in the Parliament.

To start addressing the problem, Glucksmann called for an ad hoc investigative committee to be set up in Parliament, while other left-wing and Greens lawmakers have urged reforms including naming an anti-corruption vice president to replace Kaili, who was expelled from the S&D group late Monday, and setting up an ethics committee overseeing all EU institutions.

Glass half-full

Others, however, were less convinced that the corruption probe would turn up new names, or that the facts unveiled last Friday spoke to any wider problem in the EU. Asked about the extent of the bribery scandal, one senior Parliament official who asked not to be named in order to discuss confidential deliberations said: "As serious as this is, it's a matter of individuals, of a few people who made very bad decisions. The investigation and arrests show that our systems and procedures have worked."

Valérie Hayer, a French lawmaker with the centrist Renew group, struck a similar note, saying that while she was deeply concerned about a "risk for our democracy" linked to foreign interference, she did not believe that the scandal pointed to "generalized corruption" in the EU. "Unfortunately, there are bad apples," she said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who's under fire over her handling of COVID-19 vaccination deals with Pfizer, declined to answer questions about her Vice President Margaritis Schinas' relations with Qatar at a press briefing, triggering fury from the Brussels press corps.

The Greek commissioner represented the EU at the opening ceremony of the World Cup last month, and has been criticized by MEPs over his tweets in recent months, lavishing praise on Qatar's labor reforms.

Asked about the Commission's response to the Qatar corruption scandal engulfing the European Parliament, and in particular the stance of Schinas, von der Leyen was silent on the Greek commissioner.

Von der Leyen did, however, appear to lend support to the creation of an independent ethics body that could investigate wrongdoing across all EU bodies.

"These rules [on lobbying by state actors] are the same in all three EU institutions," said the senior Parliament official, referring to the European Commission, Parliament and the European Council, the roundtable of EU governments.

The split over how to address corruption shows how even in the face of what appears to be an egregious example of corruption, members of the Brussels system — comprised of thousands of well-paid bureaucrats and elected officials, many of whom enjoy legal immunity as part of their jobs — seeks to shield itself against scrutiny that could threaten revenue or derail careers.

I mentioned it in the Brexit thread but I think foreign junkets paid for by, say, the Azeri government or Qatari government are a really big corruption-ish scandal that's hiding in plain sight. A lot of the details are public already - it feels like it just needs a story to link it too.