Catalan MEPs Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí have presented a set of questions to the European Commission, regarding the alleged involvement of the EU high representative in foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, in the Qatargate scandal. "The Qatargate case and the bribery scandal is striking right at the heart of the European Parliament, where many MEPs and parliamentary assistants could end up being implicated. In this context, Eva Kaili's lawyer, Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, said that "high representative Josep Borrell [...] had decided, at Commission level, to cooperate with Qatar, Kuwait and Oman" in 2019, they indicated.
As a consequence of this, the three MEPs have formulated 3 questions:
1) Will the European Commission verify and make public all meetings, trips and communications between its officials, such as High Representative Borrell, Vice President Schinas and their teams, and the Emirate of Qatar?
2) Will the Commission maintain normal relations with Qatar while the scandal is investigated?
3) What legislative proposals in terms of transparency will the Commission make to avoid new cases in the future?
The lawyer for the until now vice-president of the European Parliament, Eva Kaili, the aforementioned Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, stated on Wednesday that when she went to Qatar, where she held several interviews, she was following a plan that had been launched in 2019 by the chief representative of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, and also the commissioner for Foreign Affairs, Ylva Johansson, to cooperate with this Arab country and with Kuwait and Oman, as reported by Euractiv.
In statements to the Greek TV channel MEGA, the lawyer also implicated the current president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, asserting that Kaili was following orders from Metsola in her travels. "What the public needs to know is that Qatar did not need to bribe Kaili because she went to Qatar as a representative of the European Parliament, and the speeches and interviews she gave were in line with an agreement and an order from president Roberta Metsola," Dimitrakopoulos stated. "Metsola also sent with her an EU official, Roberto Bendini, to observe all the meetings Ms Kaili held," he added.
As the three Catalan MEPs observe, Qatar is currently in the international spotlight as a result of its poor human rights compliance, and also due to the bribery practices in relation to FIFA. "The cases of thousands of migrant workers who died or were injured during the construction works related to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 are known about. This case of bribes calls into question the true interests of the European policy towards Qatar and other countries", they add.