Qatargate: the emirate denies any involvement and threatens the European Union
Greek politician and Vice-President of the European Parliament Eva Kaïli, on December 7, 2022 in Brussels.
PA
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On December 9, the Belgian judicial police arrested in Brussels Francesco Giorgi, European parliamentary assistant and companion of one of the vice-presidents, the Greek MEP Eva Kaïli who was to be arrested at the end of the day.
The emirate denies any involvement and threat.
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With our correspondent in Brussels,
Pierre Benazet
Ten days ago, it was the start of a corruption case which now also concerns Morocco, but which remains called
Qatargate
.
In total, the police got their hands on more than 1.5 million euros in cash, money supposed to come mainly from Qatar, according to leaks in the investigation file.
What the emirate denies and threatens.
A statement signed by a diplomat from the Qatar mission in Brussels says that relations in terms of security or gas supply will suffer from the measures taken by the European Parliament.
In this case, Qatar describes as "
discriminatory
" the measures requested on Thursday in the resolution voted by MEPs, namely to prohibit access to parliament to representatives of Qatari interests.
Parliament has also decided to suspend all legislative work concerning the emirate.
Postponed votes
All this will put off indefinitely on the one hand the examination of the liberalization of visas and on the other hand an agreement which gave Qatar Airways access to European skies.
This agreement was already widely criticized by European airlines.
The Qatari press release also attacks Belgium and says it is very disappointed with its attitude, because Belgium has made “
no effort to establish the facts with our government
”.
The independence of justice is apparently not a familiar concept to the author of the press release who also denounces the leaks of the file and the inaccurate information which targets “
exclusively Qatar
”.
►Also read: “Qatargate”: a mainly Italian network, operated by Qatar and Moroccan intelligence
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