Ravenna, Italy

Everyone in Britain has focused on what the Qatargate corruption scandal reveals about the European Union – but not on what it tells us about the European left.

The fact is that all those so far accused of taking bribes from Qatar and its ally Morocco are left-wing MEPs – or former MEPs – and their assistants, or else bosses of left-wing human rights charities or trade union leaders. Most are Italians who are members, or ex-members, of Italy’s post-communist party – the Partito Democratico (PD).

The hypocrisy of these prize exponents of the Euro left – some of whom, according to leaked transcripts of their interrogations, have already in part confessed – is staggering. For these defenders of the rights of the poor and the downtrodden are accused no less of systematically taking bribes from the small gas-rich Islamic state in the Persian Gulf (among other things) to whitewash its dire human rights record.

Qatar! Which is ranked 128 out of 165 in the Human Freedom Index. Qatar! Where thousands of foreign workers – who make up the majority of the 2.9 million population – are said to have died building the world cup stadiums. Qatar! Where adultery and gay sex are crimes punishable by up to seven years in jail which is, I suppose, lenient compared to death by stoning or being thrown off a cliff. Qatar! Whose Emir covetously cocooned Lionel Messi on the World Cup victory podium last Sunday in a shimmering dishdasha as if to say: I have bought you too, my friend!

Belgian prosecutors have nicknamed Qatargate ‘The Italian Job’ ­– but inside Italy? Silenzio.

These champagne socialists already live the life of Riley thanks to the huge taxpayer-funded salaries and perks of the Brussels gravy train – and yet, as the Italians say: Rubano pure! (‘and still they steal!’). The Belgian police have seized 1.5 million euros in cash, nearly all of it found in just two flats.

They would appear to be guilty, not just of betraying their left-wing parties, their core beliefs, the voters who elected them, and the sponsors who fund their charities – but also of betraying their countries by selling themselves to a foreign power.

Here in Italy, at least, where Qatargate has dominated the news since the scandal emerged a fortnight ago, the media – even though by and large left-wing – has been unable to avoid the uncomfortable question: what does all this tell us about the left?

As Pier Luigi Bersani, a former leader of the post-communist PD, who knows many of the accused Italians well, admitted on the prime-time TV talk show Otto e Mezzo on Tuesday: Qatargate is ‘uno sputo in faccia’ (‘a spit in the face’) for the left, for Italy, for the institutions of the EU and for NGOs everywhere. ‘The damage is of cosmic proportions,’ he said.

Popular support for the PD, already devastated by its resounding defeat at the general election in September to Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing coalition, has collapsed to 14.7 per cent. Yet as recently as August, it was running neck and neck on about 24 per cent with Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, whose support in the polls has increased since the election to 30.6 per cent.

Five people, all except one of them Italian, are in custody accused of corruption, money-laundering and criminal association. Many more are under investigation. Belgian police have searched 20 flats and ‘frozen’ the IT resources of ten parliamentary offices to stop the destruction of information. But only one serving MEP has been arrested – Eva Kaili – the (ex) Greek socialist vice president of the European parliament. Undoubtedly, this is because MEPs enjoy immunity from prosecution unless caught in flagrante (as she was, with 150,000 euro in cash in her flat), which prosecutors believe came from Qatar and Morocco. Her father was caught simultaneously with 600,000 euro in cash inside a suitcase at the city’s Sofitel hotel. She is in custody but her father was released on bail. More than 60 MEPs are thought to be involved in Qatargate, according to prosecution sources. But prosecutors are powerless to arrest them unless the European parliament votes to lift immunity in each case.

Though Kaili, a 44-year-old former TV news presenter, is any picture editor’s dream she is not the key figure in the scandal. That honour goes to Pier Antonio Panzeri, 67, a former Italian MEP with the post-communist PD from 2004 to 2019 and Kaili’s boyfriend, Francesco Giorgi, 35, who used to be Panzeri’s parliamentary assistant. He’s now the assistant of Andrea Cozzolino, another Italian MEP from the PD. Like Kaili, Panzeri and Giorgi are in custody.

When he lost his seat in 2019, and with it his post as chairman of the parliament’s sub-committee on human rights, Panzeri immediately founded Fight Impunity, a Brussels-based human rights charity – whose offices are in Rue Ducale, next door to the British Ambassador’s official residence. Police are said to have seized 600,000 euro in cash from his Brussels flat. In November, he gave 50,000 euro in two envelopes decorated with Father Christmas – say prosecutors – to another Italian, Luca Visentini, just before the latter’s election as secretary-general of the International Trade Union Confederation which is also based in Brussels. Visentini, criticised in the past for his soft line on human rights in Qatar, was arrested but released on bail. Fight Impunity’s offices are in the same building as another human rights charity, No Peace Without Justice, whose secretary-general, Niccolò Figà-Talamanca, was also arrested and bailed.

Italian prosecutors simultaneously seized a further 17,000 euro in cash from Panzeri’s home in Italy, near Bergamo. His wife, Maria, 67, and daughter, Silvia, 38, are both in custody, accused of being his accomplices. This week, prosecutors froze the Italian bank accounts of Panzeri, in which there are 40,000 euro and of his daughter, where there are 200,000 euro. Belgian police have applied to extradite his wife. An intercepted phone call between husband and wife reveals that she told him they could not afford a ‘100,000 euro holiday like last year’. He was due to address a Fight Impunity conference on world peace in Venice on 12 December, three days after his arrest. Speakers included Mary Lou McDonald, leader of Sinn Féin, and Sergio Segio, a former communist terrorist, sentenced to life for murder and terrorism offences but released early in 2004. Segio, now an author and human rights activist, regularly collaborates with Panzeri.

Fight Impunity’s prestigious team of honorary board members included Bernard Cazeneuve, a former French socialist prime minister and Federica Mogherini, a former Italian post-communist EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs. Both resigned when Panzeri was arrested.

The charity’s mission statement – according to its website – commits it ‘to promote the fight against impunity for serious violations of human rights and crimes against humanity’. Panzeri used to write a blog for the Italian edition of the Huffington Post and in February wrote that it is vital to prevent every workplace death, but that the alleged 6,000-plus work-related deaths at the Qatar World Cup ‘need to be statistically relativised’. It is also necessary to understand, he added, that the situation will improve now that Ali bin Samikh al Marri, the president of Qatar’s Human Rights Commission, has been appointed its new labour minister.

These champagne socialists already live the life of Riley thanks to the huge taxpayer-funded salaries and perks of the Brussels gravy train

Kaili insists that she is innocent – but MEPs voted 625-1 nonetheless to strip her of her vice-presidency. The Socialists and Democrats Group (S&D) – the second-largest in the European parliament – has suspended her and four other MEPs. They include Cozzolino – who her boyfriend Giorgi works for – and Belgian socialist Marie Arena, who replaced Panzeri in 2019 as chair of the sub-committee on human rights.

In October, Panzeri and Giorgi met al Marri in Brussels several times, according to prosecutors, to coach him on what to say about the strides forward made by Qatar to protect workers’ rights when he appeared before the European parliament’s human rights sub-committee on 14 November.

Little over a week later, the European parliament passed a notably tepid resolution calling on Qatar – and Fifa – to compensate the families of foreign workers who had died building the World Cup stadiums and infrastructure. In a passionate defence of Qatar, Kaili spoke against the resolution. She was among many MEPs from her own S&D Group who successfully voted down the inclusion of harsher language.

She told MEPs: ‘Qatar is a frontrunner in labour rights… Still, some here are calling to discriminate them. They bully them and they accuse everyone that talks to them, or engages, of corruption. But still, they take their gas.’ She also claimed that Europe has on its conscience ‘thousands of deaths’ from migrants who lost their lives crossing the Mediterranean, which means ‘we do not have the moral right for lectures to get cheap media attention’.

She and Giorgi, who is also a qualified sailing instructor, have a daughter Ariadni, born in February last year. Their Facebook pages are full of glowing reports about their fantastic lifestyle and holidays skiing in the Alps and sailing in the Aegean where they own a large plot of land on the sea on the island of Paros – which Greek police have sequestered.

Such is the damage that they have done to the left that Nikos Androulakis, leader of the Greek socialist party, Pasok, from which Kaili is now expelled, has accused her of being a ‘Trojan Horse’ for the right.

A clear majority of Italians (58 per cent) think that what has emerged so far is just ‘the tip of an iceberg of a system that is deeply corrupt’, according to a poll released this week. Real power in Brussels, lest we forget, does not lie with the elected parliament, which is more or less a glorified talking shop. Instead, it lies with the unelected Commission which is both the legislative and executive arm of the EU. So it is difficult to believe that Qatar and Morocco – and no doubt countless other countries – are not bribing Commission staff with even larger sums of money. After all, what exactly are they getting for their money from the parliament?

Indeed, Maurizio Molinari, editor of La Repubblica, which is working in tandem with Belgium’s Le Soir on Qatargate, told the talk-show L’Aria Che Tira on Tuesday: ‘How is it possible that two countries with such strong links on the bilateral level with the EU and with such ambitious objectives… stopped with the parliament? Is it really possible that they haven’t also tried to infiltrate and condition the work of the Commission? This is the question which is being worked on in Brussels right now and which places the operational heart of the EU in the eye of the storm.’

A further question, but one on which there is almost total media silence in Italy is what Qatargate tells us about the Italians. Belgian prosecutors have nicknamed it ‘The Italian Job’ – but inside Italy? Silenzio.

Except this. Mario Monti, the economist parachuted in to become Italian prime minister in 2011 to steer Italy out of the euro crisis, was desperate for capital to save the Italian banking system and in 2012 asked the Emir of Qatar – who refused. When Monti asked him for an explanation, the Emir replied: ‘Too much corruption in your country!’ As an Albanian once told me: ‘There’s always something funny going on with those Italians.’