Qatargate, Belgian prosecutor’s office requests waiver of immunity for Dem MEPs Moretti and Gualmini

Brussels – Qatargate, the investigation into alleged third-country bribery that rocked the EU Parliament in December 2022 and appeared at a standstill, is back to strike a blow. According to Brussels daily Le Soir, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office has asked the European Parliament to waive the immunity of Alessandra Moretti and Elisabetta Gualmini, both MEPs from the Democratic Party and the European family of Socialists and Democrats.

The names of the two MEPs had already circulated in the first phase of the investigation orchestrated by investigating judge Michael Claise (taken over later by Aurélie Dejaiffe) and formally launched on December 9, 2022. Under the lens of the Belgian judiciary ended up one by one the Dems Antonio Panzeri (later Article One) and Andrea Cozzolino, the Greek Eva Kaili with her companion and Panzeri’s parliamentary assistant, Francesco Giorgi, and the Belgians Marc Tarabella and Maria Arena. All are from the S&D group in the European Parliament.

The Democratic Party delegation immediately expressed solidarity, stating in a press release that all its members are “convinced that Alessandra Moretti and Elisabetta Gualmini are completely uninvolved in the events contested by the Belgian Public Prosecutor’s Office. We know them to be people of outstanding honesty and dedication to their work in the institutions and, expressing our solidarity and closeness to them, we appreciate their willingness to collaborate with the Belgian judiciary”.

The note continues, “We thank them for their decision to suspend themselves from the group to avoid any exploitation concerning a procedure that has been open for years. We hope they will now proceed to ascertain and clarify the disputed facts.”

The request for waiver of immunity has been submitted to the Bureau of the European Parliament. It will be announced by President Roberta Metsola during the plenary session on March 10, before being submitted to the EU Parliament Legal Affairs Committee for consideration.

In their second term on the Brussels benches, Moretti and Gualmini had only been touched by the scandal of alleged bribery from Qatar and Morocco to water down the European Parliament’s positions on respect for rights in those countries. Moretti, believed to be very close to the “mastermind” of the Panzeri system, had visited the emirate in February 2020 and toured a future World Cup stadium construction site with her colleague Tarabella. Both Italian MEPs also spoke during the key hearing at the Subcommittee on Human Rights (DROI) of Qatar’s Minister of Labor, Ali bin Samikh Al Marri, on November 14, 2022.

Moretti and Gualmini, in a joint statement, said they had learnt “from the press of the request by the Belgian judicial authorities to revoke our immunity. In order to emphasise our complete lack of involvement in any corrupt activities, we have decided to suspend ourselves from the group to which we belong, so that we are fully available to the magistrates for any investigative needs”. “We thank the delegation of Democratic Party MEPs”, the two members of parliament conclude, “for the political and human solidarity they have publicly expressed.”

 

It should be recalled that the procedure to waive immunity—already granted two years ago by the EU Parliament under emergency procedure against Tarabella and Cozzolino—does not affect the presumption of innocence. All suspects, against whom the Belgian prosecutor’s office had initially imposed precautionary measures, were released with or without conditions.

After Metsola’s announcement, which is expected to come next week, the requests will be forwarded to the relevant EU Parliament committee, the legal committee (JURI). At that point, the committee will have to appoint a rapporteur who, before formulating a proposal for a decision recommending the adoption or rejection of the request to waive immunity, will be entitled to ask the authorities concerned (in this case, the Belgian judiciary) to provide information deemed necessary for the formation of an opinion. At this stage, hearings with the MPs concerned may take place.

Once debated and voted on in JURI, the Commission’s proposed decision will be presented to the chamber and placed on the agenda of the first subsequent session. If adopted by the chamber (by a simple majority), Metsola will close the procedure by immediately communicating Parliament’s decision to the affected members and the relevant national authority.