The right way to respond to corruption

In recent days the European Parliament has been engulfed in a media storm as a number of MEPs, including the (now dismissed) Vice-President Eva Kaili, are suspected of corruption and being in the pocket of Qatar. Offices have been shut, homes searched and a few individuals have been arrested. 

The reputational damage for the EU and for the European Parliament is obvious. Far right politicians and governments have jumped on the opportunity to claim that no statement from any MEP or any representative of an EU institution is worth anything now that some wrongdoers have been found. Take Jordan Bardella, the leader of France's Rassemblement National and an MEP himself, who was widely quoted as saying that the affair made a 'mockery' of the EU's attachment to standards and values. Or the Hungarian Foreign Minister, Peter Szijjarto, who would like citizens to imagine that the European Parliament as a whole can never again speak with credibility on questions of corruption (which has become endemic in Hungary under Viktor Orban's regime). 

It would be tempting to brush all this under the carpet, to let the whole affair blow over, wait for the media cycle to refresh and then move on as if nothing had happened. Indeed, it's easy enough to argue that this is just a few bad apples and so focusing on it is just a distraction. 

But we should not turn away from this, instead we should face it head on and see how the scandal serves to highlight the fundamental strengths of the EU's only directly elected institution. 

To start, however, it's important to acknowledge some hard truths. If the reports and accusations do end up being true, then this is a blatant case of political corruption at a high level. As well as general promotion ahead of hosting the World Cup, it's possible Qatar secured more direct benefits from these deals, including regulations granting Qataris visa-free travel into the EU and a liberalisation of air travel between the EU and Qatar. 

There's also no denying that the European Parliament was slow to catch up to this. Belgian national prosecutors and investigators have taken the lead in this case from the very start and it is worth asking how long it would have taken for this to be brought to light if only the Parliament had been responsible for monitoring itself (or worse, whether it would have ever been discovered at all). The EU's anti-fraud office (OLAF) has limited power to prosecute suspected cases of corruption and while the Commission suggested the creation of an ethics body to monitor conflicts of interest back in 2019, such a system has yet to be set up. 

Yet within the context of these institutional shortcomings, a very large number of MEPs have shown that they do take their commitments on corruption and the rule of law seriously. 

Within days of the scandal breaking, a near-unanimous vote among MEPs stripped Kaili of her position as Vice-President, she was suspended from her political group, and, though no one can force her to quit as an MEP, there is pressure on her to do so. European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, who is from the same group as Kaili and others who are accused of corruption, has promised an internal investigation to root out any responsible and assess how this was allowed to happen, with reformed rules to follow. And the most tangible and valuable outcome of Qatari influence, the EU-Qatar airways deal, now hangs in the balance as MEPs look into their options for pausing or cancelling the ratification process. 

Speed, professionalism and a lack of partisan rivalry - from a bad situation, MEPs have responded as well as a reasonable person could expect. 

What a contrast, for those of us watching from Britain, to Westminster's reaction to the Owen Paterson affair. Though equipped with a large majority and not at all reliant on a single MP, the Johnson government went out of its way to try and protect Paterson from any serious consequences following the revelation that he had improperly advocated for a company while in their pay. A highly partisan vote on the matter initially shielded Paterson by changing the rules, but the debate dragged on for many weeks. In the end, Paterson himself pre-empted a further vote on the issue by resigning. Today it remains far from obvious that the UK system is well-equipped to prevent future corruption and the issue of second jobs for MPs remains a long way from resolved. 

We would all like our political systems to be free of corruption. We would much prefer that such scandals never arise in the first place. But the truth is we will likely never completely eliminate these problems. 

What we can hope for, and what we should demand from our politics, is a system that can spot these issues when they arise, deal with them firmly in a non-partisan manner and implement the lessons learned. 

In spite of their glee today, if the European Parliament's critics were to be confronted by their own corruption problems, vanishingly few of them could muster the same level of response.