In a new and dramatic chapter of the corruption scandal named ‘Catargate’ that has shaken the European Parliament since the middle of the month, Belgian justice now turns to Morocco, whose secret services would also have “bought”, like Qatar, one of the arrested , the former MEP Antonio Panzeri.
Is it a systemic practice that is endangering the bloc’s democratic balance? The instruments to control the innumerable lobbies operating in the European Union (EU) exist, but appear to be insufficient to combat the flow of dirty money.
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On December 13, by an overwhelming majority, the European Parliament decided to end the functions of vice-president of the Greek socialist, Eva Kaili, after her arrest and imprisonment for corruption. The MEP is accused of having received money from Qatar to defend the interests of the emirate, organizer of the World Cup.
Three other people, Panzeri, his former parliamentary assistant, Francesco Giorgi, and the head of the NGO No Peace Without Justice, Niccolo Figa-Talamanca, also remain in prison, while dozens of other officials and parliamentary deputies are in the crosshairs of justice. . Virtually all those investigated belong to the Social Democratic (S&D) parliamentary group. Dismayed, legislators seem willing to urgent changes.
Easy to say. But for years European officials have been trying to regulate the action of pressure groups, without being able to cover the gaps that always remain open.
Increasingly similar to Washington, in Brussels there is a lobby for all. The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Associations and Industries (Efpia), manufacturers of pink slime, that meat in pasta that looks like a marshmallow (Clitravi), or Europatat, whose cute name could be laughable, if behind it the economic power of McCain, the Canadian frozen potato multinational, which sells one of every three french fries in the world. Without forgetting the representatives of the internet giants, the Gafam, omnipresent when it comes to influencing.
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All that is not poetry, it is lobbying. Namely, write, amend, dilute, divert, delay or suppress a law. Well, it is precisely in Brussels and Strasbourg (the two seats of the European Parliament), where the EU draws up the directives, rules and laws applied in its 27 Member States.
so renowned for its lobby as for his Manneken-Pis, Brussels has become over the years the second place of influence in the world, after the capital of the United States. The flourishing sector of lobbying represents at least 3,000 million euros per year. Taught at Sciences Po, equipped with professional bodies and “charters of deontology,” the lobbying It was trivialized to the point of becoming a profession like any other.
To exercise it, there are several categories. First of all there are in-house lobbyists. On their business cards, these representatives of firms, industry federations and industry associations define themselves as responsible for “governmental”, “public”, “regulatory”, “European”, “scientific” and even “product safety” issues. . Behind come the consultants from companies of lobbying I public relations. Finally, there are law firms and think-tanks.
Their salaries are known. A junior charges about 2,000 euros per month. A senior can go up to 6,000 euros.
Since 2008, the European institutions have provided themselves with a transparency register where all interest representatives must register and provide information about their activity. The problem is that registration is still optional, thus allowing many law firms and companies to stay off the radar. Until 2013, a hundred big firms like Apple, Heineken and Nissan, or banks like HSBC and UBS, were absent.
Things have evolved a bit since then, although nobody usually verifies the veracity of the declared data. Among other charges, NGOs regularly denounce the costs of lobbyingvoluntarily reduced in those registers.
commercial interests
Based on –incomplete– data from this transparency registry, NGOs and university students estimate that close to 60 percent of the lobbyists They defend commercial interests. And the media – that is, the frappe force– of these pressure groups are infinitely superior to those of organizations representing the general interest and civil society.
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The European Chemical Industry Council, for example, has an annual budget of 40 million euros, while the largest NGO, Greenpeace, only has 3.8 million euros at its disposal. Ten times less. In Brussels, every day is David against Goliath.
In 2020, the common register for the European Commission and the Parliament had 11,800 declared organizations. That year, the NGO Transparency International estimated at 26,500 the number of lobbyists regularly present in Brussels and at 37,300 the number of people involved in activities of lobby in the Belgian capital.
Although assimilated to corruption, ‘lobbying’ should not be confused with it.
In any case, although assimilated to corruption, the lobbying not to be confused with her. Officials may not receive any kind of gifts or invitations or trips. The goal of lobby It is summed up in obtaining a relationship and privileged access to those who decide. In other words, the influence may be opaque, but the methods used by the professionals of persuasion are known and, above all, legal.
However, both in the case of a lobbying effective, as in the case of corruption, the problem is not that these groups – or countries, as in the case of Qatar, which does not appear in any registry – manage to manipulate officials or MEPs, but rather that these are for sale.
To try to remedy this, in 2019, the European Parliament established the obligation for its members to “publish the list of all scheduled meetings with representatives of interests concerned by the application of the transparency register.”
That transparency is, however, mandatory only for legislators responsible for drafting reports or bills. It is not imposed on meetings with diplomats, journalists or ordinary citizens. Nor does it apply to former MEPs, who continue to have access to Parliament –as in the case of the arrested Antonio Panzeri–, or to chance encounters, in a corridor, an elevator or a cocktail party.
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On the other hand, the provisions that frame the lobbyingdo not apply to third States or their representatives. That seems to be the origin of the current scandal, in which representatives of Qatar and Morocco are implicated.
“In all evidence, the EU is not armed to stop corruption attempts. A foreign representative is not required to declare himself in the transparency registry. It needs to be like that”, estimates Chantal Cutajar, a lawyer and director of a research group on organized crime.
Cutajar defends the idea of create an independent body in charge of respecting ethics and the code of conduct of European legislators. That code exists, but the person in charge of enforcing it is an internal body of Parliament, the Consultative Committee.
LUISA CORRADINI – THE NATION (ARGENTINA) – PARIS
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