While claiming innocence in the money-for-influence scandal, Maria Arena, chair of the subcommittee on human rights, has stepped down from her duties.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The chairperson of the European Parliament’s subcommittee on human rights who is backing an anti-Israel motion stepped down from her post after being caught up in the growing influence-peddling scandal in Brussels, whose main actor has been fingered as Qatar.

Belgian MEP Maria Arena’s office was sealed by the country’s police on Friday, several news agencies reported. She denied any connection to the scandal, saying that suspicion had fallen on her assistant for prior, unrelated work that was done for an NGO under investigation.

In all, police confiscated computer data from 10 assistants’ offices on Monday.

Arena voluntarily vacated her position, as did several other Socialist lawmakers who are either under investigation themselves or who have assistants who are being probed.

“Following the revelations of suspicion of corruption linked to Qatar and the European Parliament, and the search of one of my assistants in the framework of this affair, I have decided that temporarily I will no longer preside over meetings of the Human Rights Committee,” Arena tweeted.

The human rights subcommittee had been debating various versions of a resolution highly critical of Israel, calling on its nascent coalition not to expand settlements in Judea and Samaria and backing the two-state solution, in reaction to the Israeli right wing’s election victory last month.

A source familiar with the discussions told Israel Hayom that considering the ongoing corruption probe, “perhaps it would be inappropriate to have these measures stay on the subcommittee’s docket.”

The source also suggested that there should be an investigation “if there are tainted motives behind the resolutions that have come out of the subcommittee.”

Qatar has no diplomatic relations with Israel and is a strong supporter of Hamas, sending hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the terror organization that rules the Gaza Strip.

Qatar has yet to be named officially as the country trying to buy its way into the favor of EU legislators. On Friday, police arrested the European parliament’s vice president, Eva Kaili and three others on charges of corruption,  participation in a criminal group and money laundering. Kaili was immediately stripped of her duties and suspended by her Greek party.

Speaking at the last plenary session of the year on Monday, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola gave no names when she said the legislature and the continent’s democracies were “under attack” by “malign actors, linked to autocratic third countries.”

These countries,” she added, “have allegedly weaponized NGOs, unions, individuals, assistants and MEPs in an effort to subdue our [parliamentary] processes.”

According to European media, the region’s parliament has suspended its work with Qatar, although Doha has strongly denied any involvement in the scheme.

“Any allegation of misconduct on the part of the State of Qatar testifies to serious misinformation,” a Qatari government official told AFP on Saturday.

The moniker “Qatargate” is already being used openly in the media in connection with the scandal.

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Eva Kaili’s party in Greece publicly distanced itself from remarks she made in the EU parliament last month praising Qatar.

By Associated Press

The European Union’s top official said Monday that the allegations of corruption targeting a vice-president of the European Parliament are of “utmost concern” as she called for the creation of an independent ethics body covering all the bloc’s institutions.

Belgian prosecutors charged four people over the weekend with corruption, being part of a criminal group and money laundering in connection with a major investigation into influence peddling at the European Union’s parliament.

The lobbying scandal has already seen parliament Vice-President Eva Kaili of Greece relieved of her duties. Authorities have not identified the Gulf country suspected of offering cash or gifts to officials at the parliament in exchange for political favors, but several members of the assembly and some Belgian media have linked the investigation to Qatar.

Qatar’s foreign ministry has denied any wrongdoing.

Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, said the accusations against Kaili are threatening the confidence that EU citizens put in the 27-nation bloc’s institutions.

“This confidence and trust in our institutions need highest standards of independence and integrity,” von der Leyen told a news conference.

The federal prosecutor’s office, without identifying any individual, said four of six people detained on Friday have been charged. The other two have been released.

Prosecutors have confirmed that one member of the Parliament was arrested but declined to confirm it is Kaili. They said they suspect “the payment of large sums of money, or the offer of significant gifts” to people holding strategic positions at the European Parliament capable of influencing decisions.

In Athens, Greek government spokesman Giannis Oikonomou said the case of Kaili “is a very serious case that is in the hands of Belgian justice.”

The case, he said, “creates one more rift in the credibility and trust in European institutions and the European Parliament.”

Cash, equipment worth over $600,000 seized

The scandal broke as the EU Parliament begins its last plenary session of the year in Strasbourg, France, later on Monday.

Manon Aubry, the Left group’s co-president at Parliament, said that her group will ask for a debate and a resolution on the scandal, with the aim of implementing “way stricter rules.”

“The battle continues: Our democracy is not for sale,” she said on Twitter.

European Parliament president Roberta Metsola relieved Kaili, a 44-year-old former TV news anchor, of her duties over the weekend. Kaili also was suspended by her party in Greece and the Police seized around 600,000 euros ($633,500) in cash, computer equipment and mobile telephones.

Kaili’s party in Greece, the Socialist Pasok-Movement for Change, publicly distanced itself from remarks she made in the EU parliament last month praising Qatar, which is currently hosting soccer’s gala event, the World Cup.

Qatar has come under heavy international pressure to introduce labor reforms in recent years as it sought to build new World Cup stadiums in record time, often using migrant workers who toiled for long hours under harsh conditions.

Asked whether Belgian authorities had been in touch with the European Commission as part of their investigation, von der Leyen said she had no clue. “I would have to ask my staff,” she said.

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