On the eve of the Qatargate outbreak, Avramopoulos had denounced an Italian conspiracy against him that wanted to impose the “socialist” Di Maio for the post of special envoy
The theorem that Qatargate is the evil of all European evils continues to circulate, the latest “evidence” would be the alleged pressure exerted by former MEP Antonio Panzeri , mastermind of corruption, in favor of Dimitri Avramopoulos to obtain the post of special envoy of the European Union in the Gulf.
Avramopoulos is a long-time politician with a respectable curriculum: Mayor of Athens from 1995 to 2002, Minister of Health, Foreign Affairs and Defense of the Hellenic Republic. From 2014 to 2019 he was European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship.
The choice of the candidate for the new position, whose portfolio is not yet publicly known, had already caused discussion last November because various voices believed that the former minister Luigi Di Maio, given in pole position, was poorly qualified for the position . In addition to the former Five Star and Avramopoulos, the other candidates were the Slovak Ján Kubiš, former foreign minister, who held various UN positions in the Middle East and North Africa and the Cypriot Markos Kyprianou, another former foreign minister and EU commissioner. Politicians from small countries but with experiences not even remotely comparable to those of Di Maio.
Avramopoulos had made headlines in early December because together with Federica Mogherini, Emma Bonino, Cecilia Wikström, Bernard Cazeneuve and others he was among the members of the honorary board of Fight impunity, the NGO created by Panzeri in 2019 and considered a vehicle for money laundering by the Belgian prosecutor Michel Claise. Before clarifying that he had long since resigned from that role, the Greek politician had confirmed that he had received 5,000 euros a month for one year to represent Fight Impunity on a couple of occasions (one in person and one online) and that he had done so with the ok of the competent offices of the von der Leyen Commission.
On the eve of the Qatargate outbreak, Avramopoulos had denounced an Italian conspiracy against him which wanted to impose the “socialist” Di Maio for the post of special envoy. According to some recent rather murky reconstructions, Panzeri would have acted, and paid, in support of the compatriot of the Greek partner, Eva Kaili, of her former parliamentary assistant Francesco Giorgi (also involved in the corruption and money laundering association), it does not matter that Avramopoulos is not from the same political side as Panzeri and Kaili.
The candidacy of the former leader of the Five Star Movement seems to have been a sort of token of appreciation of Mario Draghi following the price that Di Maio had paid for the split from the Five Stars to support his government. Even if Draghi has never confirmed a particular diplomatic commitment for “his pupil” it seems that he personally recommended him to the high representative for foreign policy Josep Borrell himself in charge of the decision.
Di Maio’s selection was carried out by a jury of European officials, the controversies that followed were linked both to the fact that the other candidates were much more qualified than him and because the Draghi government had had very serious problems with the Emirates and the Saudis two years ago. If Di Maio had obtained that position, the local powerful would not have particularly liked it.
In fact, with a historic decision taken for the first time in the 30 years since the entry into force of Law 185 of 1990 on the export of arms, on 29 January 2021 the government of Giuseppe Conte had canceled the authorizations for the export of missiles and plane bombs on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The decision followed a resolution of July 2019 relating to the MAE 45560 license to Saudi Arabia by the Renzi government (2016) which provided for almost 20,000 Mk series aerial bombs for a value of over 411 million euros.
At the time, Di Maio presented the decision saying that it was “a clear message of peace coming from our country” which confirmed an “indissoluble commitment” to human rights – the weapons were most likely intended to be used in the conflict in Yemen . The statements were not taken well in Abu Dhabi and Riyhad.
In June 2021 the “retaliation” of the Emirates forced Italy to evacuate the military forces from the Al Minhad military air base in Dubai where the flights of our international missions to Iran, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa stopped.
The final decision on the choice of the envoy rests with Borrell, the Parliament or the European Commission, where Panzeri boasted contacts or managed to bribe, are not involved, in case of doubts the high commissioner could invite the 27 member states of the EU to vote.
Apart from problematic relations with some Gulf countries, Di Maio’s unpredictability seems to have been raised by many as a problem of reliability, in fact it is difficult to be able to count on someone who has asked for the impeachment of their Head of State, expressed with the ” gilets jaunes” in the streets against a friendly Government which then posed as a statesman. The controversies and the delay in the appointment are undermining the entire credibility of the new position, if we add the suspicions that a diplomatic war by proxy between Qataris and Emiratis is underway in Brussels, things could get hopelessly complicated.
On a couple of occasions, particularly in the first reconstructions of the Republic, the discovery of alleged corruption in Qatar is attributed to a tip from the UAE services, the information allegedly led to the “discovery” of Panzeri’s donations of money intended to influence the decisions of the European Parliament. Spiffers that would have primed the work of four other secret services, including naturally those of Belgium which since the beginning of 2022 has started telephone and environmental interceptions against the former Italian MEP and his assistant.
That the corruption orchestrated by Panzeri could concern a paragraph of a European Parliament resolution on Qatar was rather improbable, less improbable that Morocco would struggle to avoid being penalized in its privileged relationship with the European Union. The best of this Qatargate is yet to come and much will depend on the quality of the investigations by the Prosecutor who, having obtained Panzeri’s “repentance”, could limit himself to taking note of the collaborator’s “singing” or take responsibility for going to the end and uncovering a pot full of billionaire contracts, geo-strategic decisions and conflicts of interest equally distributed around Europe.
In fact, the news that Qatar was active in bribing France in this round dates back to February 6, but the tip would come from Bahrain…
source: huffingtonpost
