EU Parliament – Not again!
On Thursday, 13 March, the Belgian authorities sealed two offices in the EU Parliament on Thursday, as part of a broader bribery probe into Chinese technology giant Huawei’s lobbying activities in Europe. Politico EU reminded us that the EU Parliament had promised to do better after the Parliament was embroiled in a corruption scandal, in 2022. At that time Qatar was accused of having sought to influence parliamentarians through bribes and gifts. People were arrested and the Parliament promised to address corruption and questionable lobbying practices. Here we are three years later and “a block of right-wing lawmakers — including from the political group of European Parliament President Roberta Metsola — have held back the creation of a common ethics body that could hold lawmakers accountable.”
Are we disappointed? Yes, we were all hoping that Qatargate was a one off, and that the Parliament would move forward to ensure they can provide the ethical leadership that we expect from them. This hopefully will be a real wake-up call, and that all European capitals will make certain that their representatives will uphold the rigorous ethical standards that most EU countries have in place. Having seen weak integrity standards in many countries, the EU should provide a clear message, that ethics should be a top priority, which would remind all countries and companies that the EU is not for sale. Nothing less than that should be tolerated.
As this has been well reported, we hope that this will remind the Parliament that the world is watching.
https://www.politico.eu/article/huawei-bribery-scandal-anti-corruption-eu-qatargate-ethics/
https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2025/mar/14/arrests-made-in-corruption-probe-targeting-eu/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce98ydrpy7no