Qatargate and the Role of the European Parliament

Alberto Majocchi 
Emeritus Professor of Finance at the University of Pavia and a member of the Scientific Committee of the CSF

According to many commentators, the Qatargate scandal risks generating a wave of public mistrust in the European Parliament. Angelo Panebianco, in an article in the Corriere della Sera of 16 December 2022, rightly observes that the virus of corruption is a risk in all democratic societies, and he points out that the European Parliament appears particularly fragile because, despite being directly elected by citizens, in reality it is not a truly “representative” body.

The reason for this lack of representation is linked to the fact that the European elections are still held in national constituencies. Consequently, for many, elections are a vote for or against the incumbent government in their own country. This flawed element is real and must be addressed by reforming the voting mechanism through legislation. However, according to Panebianco ─ after observing that the citizens who vote know little to nothing about the competences of the European Parliament, or any other of its elective institutions ─ it is much more important that there is no direct connection between the election results and the type of government that will be formed, as happens in other elections, at the national and local level.

This observation is substantially correct, even though the Spitzenkandidaten system has been used since 2014, whereby the presidency of the Commission is assigned to the candidate of the political party with the largest number of seats in the European Parliament. This is a link, albeit still weak (as the election of the current President Ursula von der Leyen has shown), whereby citizens can use their vote to influence the choice of who will lead for a term the Commission, i.e., the executive body of the EU.

Qatargate is clearly a very serious incident, not least because of its large scale and likely involvement of a large number of MEPs. Even though the Parliament reacted firmly and quickly, this incident of corruption undermines trust in European institutions. However, there is another aspect to consider. As Gianfranco Pasquino observed in Domani on 21 December 2022, “a sure lesson comes from Brussels (and Strasbourg), which too many commentators seem to overlook: the European Parliament is anything but a marginal and useless body. On the contrary, in addition to representing hundreds of millions of European citizens, it is an important forum for political, social, economic and cultural decision-making.” If this were not the case, it would be incomprehensible why Qatar and Morocco have invested millions of euros in influencing the opinion of an institution that many consider insignificant. In fact, the role of the Parliament has been strengthened through the Treaty of Lisbon and the practice of the Union, even if its participation in decision-making on taxation and on foreign and security policy is not yet on an equal footing with the Council.

Much has recently changed within the Union. In particular, after the crisis generated by the pandemic, the NextGenerationEU was approved. This intervention plan amounts to 750 billion euros, earmarked for investments to achieve three objectives: energy transition, digital transition and social inclusion. This plan is financed by issuing bonds on the market, thus breaking the taboo that the Union cannot raise resources through debt. At the same time, the own resources ceiling was temporarily raised to 2% and the Commission committed itself to submitting proposals for new types of revenue.

Once again the strategic factor highlighted by Jean Monnet seems to apply to this context, namely that significant progress towards a federal Union in Europe is only possible when the Member States are involved in a stalemate from which “we can escape […] only in one way: with a concrete, resolute action on a limited but decisive point, which leads to a basic change on this point and progressively modifies the terms of the problems as a whole.” This is what happened with the pandemic in terms of debt financing and the creation of new own resources.

Furthermore, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on Russia, which resulted in a drop in Russian gas imports to Europe, the EU had to take steps to seek new sources of gas supplies from other areas of the world, but above all to find new ways to strengthen the security of its member countries and set up a European foreign policy capable of guaranteeing a new role for Europe in the world. Therefore, relations with the African Union are particularly significant, especially to develop the production of renewables to replace energy sources using fossil fuels.

However, the Qatargate crisis has highlighted another important political aspect, that corruption also occurs in left-wing parties, which are traditionally more committed to defending the political and social values that characterise the development of the Union. This fact should not come as a surprise, if one considers that Altiero Spinelli had already underlined in the 1941 Ventotene Manifesto that “the dividing line between progressive and reactionary parties no longer coincides with the formal lines of more or less democracy, or the pursuit of more or less socialism, but the division falls along a very new and substantial line: those who conceive the  essential purpose and goal of the struggle as being the ancient one, the conquest of the national political power, and those who see the main purpose as the creation of a solid international state.” In more current terms, the fundamental dividing line is no longer between the right and the left, but between nationalist and sovereignist forces and forces fighting for the completion of the federal unification process of Europe.

These observations could determine the strategy to be pursued to achieve the goal of a true federal Union. On the one hand, a Monnet strategy should be used to advance in the area of a European tax system characterised by debt financing of investments and new own resources; and, on the other hand, a Spinelli strategy should be used to create a deployment of forces willing to fight for a greater role of the Parliament in creating new resources and determining a financial plan for the Union, and to eliminate the unanimity vote in the Council in the areas of taxation, foreign policy and security. This deployment will have to emerge and strengthen before the next European Parliament elections in 2024, with the aim of defeating the sovereignist forces and giving a constituent role to the newly elected Parliament.