This week a huge EU scandal erupted. A scandal which was both predictable and inevitable, and has destroyed the EU’s reputation as a clean, honest and respected institution / organisation.
This scandal, involving suitcases stuffed full of bribed cash, sealed offices and an arrested vice president of the European Parliament who sits in jail as I write this. It is easily the biggest corruption scandal to rock the EU and the Daily Telegraph newspaper even questions whether this could be the “end of the EU?”
In total €1.5 million has been seized in police raids across 19 locations in Brussels, the capital of Belgium, which is home to EU power. Also an MEP and vice president of the EU Parliament has been charged with corruption along with 4 others, and lots of high profile cases in the works (they deny all wrongdoing).
The scandal involves the Gulf state of Qatar trying to secure an open skies deal to the EU and its airspace for its state backed airline, and could involve up to 60 MEPs. The size and breadth of this scandal is truly shocking. But should we be surprised? Of course not. Experts have been warning us about the scale of corruption and the EU gravy train for years. In the EU an MEP earns 100,000 euros a year and on top of that can claim £293 a day for meals and accommodation while they are in Brussels, as well as up to £4157 each year for travel.
Also this episode was not discovered by EU anti corruption teams. It was discovered by accident by Belgian secret service agents who were investigating foreign interference in EU institutions, having launched an investigation over a year ago. This led them to the home of an Italian former MEP, where they found €600,000 after they secretly broke in. They then informed the Belgian police (Central Office for the Repression of Corruption) they are not allowed to investigate MEPs. This then led to the 20 raids on 19 different locations in Brussels, which led to 8 arrests in Italy and Belgium.
Now I am not going to go into all the details of the arrests, which you can easily find online. I am going to talk about the corruption in the EU, of which many say this is the tip of the iceberg. Politico has a good selection of articles on the topic (it is one of the few mainstream media outlets to properly cover EU corruption) showing the complete lack of transparency on MEPs income and spending. They are also allowed to hold as many side jobs as they like with nobody checking conflicts of interest. It seems as if the whole rotten system was designed in this way so the elites of the EU could take as much as they wanted with nobody there to check or punish their corrupt actions. And to think the UK was sending this organisation tens of billions of pounds every year until Brexit (and even after thanks to the useless withdrawal agreement). I hate to think how much of British taxpayer money was stolen or used in corruption.
Now will things change after this? Well it will be up to the EU MEPs to vote to change the system and that would be like turkeys voting for Christmas. I imagine the EU will wait for this to blow over and things will carry on as normal, and the usual EU acolytes in the media and politics will make excuses for it, or completely ignore it as usual. In the Financial Times (FT), which is well known as an EU mouthpiece, I have only noticed one article on this monumental scandal. As I search now there is nothing. It has already been brushed aside and forgotten. I will be keeping my eye out for whether it will come back.
As regular citizens we have to ask ourselves how far does this corruption with the EU stretch? In Great Britain, the media and civil service do the EU’s bidding, backing it over the own country and people. And that even includes when it endangers the integrity of the country with the Northern Ireland protocol, or means tens of billions going to a corrupt EU rather than the poor and needy in the UK, or the NHS, energy infrastructure / subsidies and defence. After this scandal we have to seriously ask ourselves how much of this is simply due to a hatred of the current Tory government, pure love of an imaginary EU they refuse to see properly or how much of it is due to EU corruption and bribery? Are our security services and police watching out for this? Now we know how deep EU corruption goes we need to watch it and make sure our influential people and organisations do not become victims of it.
However is this a scandal the EU can really survive? The mask has been removed from its holier than thou image to reveal a dark and nasty face underneath. EU citizens are starting to see how the entire trade bloc project has been corrupted and abused, and surely they will no longer accept it in its current form? Here in the UK we should be glad that we are out and that people cans ee the real EU for the first time. And I hope the government reminds anyone who criticises Brexit exactly what the EU has become after decades of unchecked corruption and power grabs. We are Boom Britain certainly will.
