Another parliamentary term, another corruption scandal. This time, the Belgian police have sealed office doors inside the European Parliament as part of an investigation into allegations that lawmakers have accepted bribes from Chinese telecoms firm Huawei. According to the information leaked to the press, the bribes came in the form of lavish hospitality and cash transfers channelled via a Portuguese company. For now these remain allegations that need to stand up in court, but there have been credible reports of murky behaviour swirling around for some time.
A culture of closing ranks
The typical Parliamentary response to such scandals is captured by the three D’s – Deny, Diffuse, Dilute. First of all, deny that the problem lies in the Parliament (European Parliament President Roberta Metsola’s disingenuous ‘European democracy is under attack’ remarks post-Qatargate). Then announce a raft of diffuse reforms that have the appearance of activity without tackling the actual problem (the Metsola 14-point plan to address the Qatargate scandal); finally, when the media fuss has died down, dilute such proposals in a way that renders them ineffective (e.g. limiting the ‘cooling off period’ for Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to the first six months of the mandate when there is little or no legislative activity).
Denial and dilution at least have the merit of sincerity. Diffusion of reform efforts is more insidious since it promises much while doing little to address root causes. It also wastes the limited political appetite there is for tackling these issues on pointless theological debates over what constitutes an ‘official friendship group’.
Playing the blame game
So far, what little official response there has been indicates that the Parliament is still in the ‘deny’ phase, insisting – vaguely – that the post-Qatargate reforms are working. But we are only a revelation or two away from another spasm of soul-searching and reform proposals. To save time and energy, here are a few rabbit-holes that the Parliament should avoid.
Blame the lobbyists: “Qatargate is a corruption scandal, not a lobbying scandal” was the refrain from many in the Brussels bubble, either lobbyists wanting to avoid the taint of scandal, or those resisting more lobbying regulation. Whatever the motivation, there was much truth to the assertion. The fact that Qatargate ringleader former MEP Antonio Panzeri and his pseudo-NGO could gain access to the Parliament without registering on the lobby register said much about the loopholes in the transparency regime. But even if they had, it is highly unlikely that this would have prevented corruption or led to its detection. That goes double for the Huawei, whose lobbying activities in Brussels have been somewhat transparent (if perhaps under-reported) and support from MEPs for their positions has largely been a matter of public record. Broader transparency about who influences the legislative process is important, but if the focus is on rooting out graft, there are more important battles to fight.
Blame the foreigners: there is a tendency to blame all of Europe’s problems on covert foreign interference by hostile powers and proxies from the Gulf states to Russia to China. The interference is real, but when it comes to attempted bribery, the focus should be on the demand side: why our political class is vulnerable to, complacent about or complicit in corruption. Nobody, after all, forced an MEP or staffer to accept gifts from a company that was in breach of the Parliament’s own code of conduct.
Focusing on the incentives and opportunities available to MEPs will also bolster defences against all kinds of corruption, foreign and domestic, hostile governments and unscrupulous corporations. Some of the gifts allegedly offered by Huawei – tickets to football games, travel junkets – are a standard feature of corporate lobbying repertoires. Many in Parliament will be familiar with these tactics. I was once told by a Parliament official about a case of a company from South Korea (not a hostile power by any stretch) that was touting all-expenses-paid trips to visit its production facilities. Only one of many staffers contacted had the reflex to contact the Parliament's ethics advisors for guidance.
Blame the rules: lawyers wield a disproportionate influence in the Parliament and naturally feel most comfortable framing and arguing over legal texts. The pattern since at least the 2011 cash-for-amendments affair is for each fresh scandal to be followed by new codes of conduct, new rules and amendments to rules, each with their own set of lawyerly caveats. The end result is a complex architecture of ethical regulation that scarcely anyone fully comprehends, while the ethical culture within the institution languishes.
Shooting the messenger
The hallmark of a healthy culture is how it treats those who speak up and report misbehaviour. By this standard, the Parliament has fallen dismally short. There have been only a handful of official whistleblowing cases since the rules came into force a decade ago. And no wonder. The three cases reported in 2016 all resulted in the dismissal of the staffers concerned. Late last year, the European Court of Justice issued a damning indictment of the institution’s failure to provide the protection to a whistleblower in breach of its own rules. A survey by the European Court of Auditors found that two-thirds of staffers would hesitate to report wrongdoing to their hierarchy.
A culture of speaking up is not sufficient of course. Even the most honest and open institution risks that reports of wrongdoing languish in a dead-letter office if there is no-one willing and competent to investigate. The EU’s anti-fraud body, OLAF, has once again demonstrated its toothlessness in the face of credible allegations regarding Huawei. It is the only EU body with a mandate to investigate ethical misconduct of members, such as Commissioners and MEPs. It should be radically repurposed to focus on this mission and leave investigations into abuses of the EU budget to the new kid on the block, the European Public Prosecutor. Its independence from the European Commission should be bolstered and its investigators equipped with the resources and tools for this task. Crucially, the European Parliament needs to play ball and stop blocking OLAF’s access to offices, emails and IT equipment in cases of ethical misconduct. It should conclude an agreement with OLAF immediately to fast-track such investigations.
Building a genuinely accountable and ethical culture in the Parliament will be a slow, thankless grind. It will require long-term, cross-party commitment in an age marked by polarisation and attention deficits. It will require a humility that is scarcely evident from recent attempts by some MEPs to undermine the brand new Inter-institutional Ethics Body, It may be this Parliament’s greatest challenge.
Carl Dolan is Senior Adviser on Ethics and Transparency at the European Policy Centre.
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