The former Greek TV presenter is accused of corruption and money laundering in a plot paid for by Qatar

The vice president of the European Parliament, Eva Kaili, went from being the star of the European Parliament to the protagonist of one of the most resonant corruption scandals in the world.

Eva Kaili

Eva Kaili

The 44-year-old former Greek TV presenter is indicted by the Belgian authorities on charges of corruption and money laundering in a plot paid for by Qatar.

The scandal exploded after months of investigation and coincides with the World Cup.

The Social Democrat who has been an MEP since 2022 could not enjoy her privileges because, the Belgian prosecutor explained, they found her in flagrante delicto, with bags full of cash hidden in her house.

The investigation, carried out by a Belgian judge for four months, examines an alleged crime of “corruption” and another of “money laundering” in an organized gang.

“There are suspicions that a Gulf country” tried to influence “the economic and political decisions of the European Parliament,” the prosecution said. Although the prosecution avoided identifying the country, a source close to the case confirmed to AFP that it is Qatar.

The beneficiaries of this alleged bribery were leaders “with a significant political or strategic position” in Parliament.

The prosecution did not identify the other detainees either, but it emerged that it would be her partner, the former Italian socialist Eurolegislator Pier-Antonio Panzeri, who held a seat in the European Parliament between 2004 and 2019; the newly elected president of the International Trade Union Confederation, Luva Visentini, and a lobbyist whose identity has not been disclosed.

So far, 16 searches have been carried out in the Belgian capital, in which computer equipment, cell phones and 600,000 euros in cash have been seized.

These gifts from the Qataris would have been linked to the country’s desire to improve its image in terms of human rights and the treatment given to migrant workers, in the midst of multiple controversies that have been unleashed by the deaths of employees in recent years in the country, since it was designated as host of the World Cup.

Shortly before the start of the World Cup, Kaili had met in Qatar with the emirate’s Minister of Labor, Ali bin Samikh Al Marri. Then, the Greek representative highlighted the commitment of the Qatari leaders to “continue with their reforms of working conditions”, according to a tweet from the EU ambassador in Doha, Cristian Tudor.

“The World Cup in Qatar is a concrete demonstration of how sports diplomacy can promote the historic transformation of a country,” Kaili assured in the Chamber of Commerce on November 22.

Numerous NGOs accused Qatar of imposing very precarious working conditions on hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from Asia or Africa.

The British newspaper The Guardian revealed in February 2021 that since 2010, the date the World Cup was awarded to the emirate, 6,500 foreign workers have lost their lives in Qatar.

The International Labor Organization (ILO), which lamented the lack of data on this issue, reported fifty fatal workplace accidents and 500 seriously injured workers in 2020.

However, Kaili declared days ago that “Qatar is an example to follow in terms of labor rights”

Originally from Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city, Kaili entered politics when she was 20 years old. In 1998 she became a municipal councilor for the city. For a time, she was seen as a rising star of the socialist Pasok-Kinal party.

After obtaining an architecture diploma, she studied international and European relations and took journalism courses.

Between 2004 and 2007, Ella Kaili presented the news for one of the main private channels in the country, Mega.

And she, at only 29 years old, was elected to the Greek Parliament.

In 2014, she was elected as a Member of the European Parliament for the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group, a mandate she retained in the 2019 European elections.

In January 2022, she became one of the vice presidents of the European legislature. Ella Kaili was part of the delegation in charge of developing relations between the European Union and the Arabian Peninsula.

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