Despite all the preaching about transparency in Brussels, the new chapters in the Brussels corruption scandal and past experience show that corruption has completely pervaded Brussels.

Italian MEP Andrea Cozzolino, one of the suspects in the Brussels corruption scandal, has been released from house arrest under certain conditions. This was the first major decision from the new judge who took over the case.

The Socialist MEP is a key suspect in the Brussels corruption scandal, facing charges of corruption, criminal organisation and money laundering. Belgian prosecutors are investigating whether he accepted bribes from Morocco in exchange for favoring the country’s interests in Brussels. He is accused of blocking decisions against Morocco in exchange for cash, but he denies any wrongdoing.

Mr Cozzolino was released from house arrest on the understanding he should give a one-week notice for any travel and should not make contact with other suspects, his lawyer Vincenzo Domenico Ferraro told the Politico news portal.

Mr Cozzolino’s release was the first major decision by Aurelie Dejaiffe, the Belgian judge who took over the Brussels corruption probe after her predecessor Michel Claise stepped down on Monday amidst allegations of a conflict of interest.

The judge cited reasons of maintaining the necessary separation between private life and professional responsibilities amidst allegations of being biased.

This is just the latest chapter in the Brussels corruption scandal that has rocked the European Union’s institutions, implicating numerous politicians.

The scandal erupted last December, when several current and former MEPs and the assistant of one of them were put behind bars on preliminary charges of corruption, money laundering and involvement in a criminal organisation.

Six months have passed, and there has been no progress in the case of the political figures involved in the scandal. By now, most of them have been released from prison or house arrest. The vast majority of them continue to maintain that they are innocent despite evidence that guided by former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, they took decisions favouring Qatar, Morocco and Mauritania in exchange for gifts and some 1.5 million euros.

Eva Kaili, former Socialist EP vice-president and the other key figure in the corruption scandal, even wants to return to the European Parliament.

In the wake of the corruption scandal that has rocked the European Parliament, the European Commission is preparing to set up a new ethics body to oversee all EU institutions. However, the effectiveness of the new body has already been called into question, as it would not have the power to investigate or punish and would only be tasked with setting minimum ethics standards for all institutions.

When it comes to combating corruption, one standard applies to members of the assembly itself, and another one applies to anyone else, Politico noted in an earlier article on the corruption scandal.

Brussels’s use of double standards comes as no surprise.

As previously reported by V4NA , Brusselites have been increasingly vocal about demanding transparency from member states while they are not required to disclose publicly the assets they possess.

This implies not only that one of the most frequently cited EU principles is not met, but also that lax rules could make Brussels a hotbed of corruption. This is also evidenced by the Brussels corruption scandal.

The elite in Brussels can keep secret where, when and how many properties they acquired, or how much wealth they have amassed during their terms in office as MEPs. Neither are they required to disclose their various investments, bonds and savings. MEPs only need to report where they receive additional income from on top of their monthly salaries.

The most vocal advocates of transparency – for example, Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the liberal ALDE group, or European People’s Party group leader Manfred Weber – have failed to disclose their assets publicly.

Manfred Weber, for example, previously told the German newspaper Augsburger Allgemeine that „a method must be found to reduce the eventual pensions of corrupt parliamentarians in the event of proven misconduct.”

Manfred Weber appears to have forgotten his earlier scandal, in which the shrewd EPP politician cited his own family home as a party office in order to pocket a few thousand euros. Anyone capable of such cunning for a few thousand euros is immediately suspect when a corruption scandal breaks out. When V4NA uncovered the blatantly unethical behaviour, he was living in a house in Wildenberg, a tiny village in the middle of nowhere in Lower Bavaria. In the building, he had dubbed the ground floor his office, evidently so that he could pocket the money he would have otherwise had to spend on office rent himself. It did not matter that this small village is also distant from the big cities, making it difficult for voters to visit their beloved MEP.

In Wildenberg, V4NA journalists saw for themselves that Weber did not even bother to put out a sign on the gate that this was his MEP office.

Over the years, he has likely managed to pocket nearly $125 million with his slick idea. Moreover, he could even cover all the utilities costs of the family house from this amount, as no bills were ever requested in Brussels.

V4NA also reported on an incident in Morocco that has also cast serious suspicion on Guy Verhofstadt in connection with the corruption case. Not so long ago, in 2018, Guy Verhofstadt himself enjoyed the hospitality of Morocco, perhaps not so coincidentally in the company of left-wing MEP Eva „Katargate” Kaili, according to a photo taken at a conference.

#KasbahTamadot: 1st panel of Day 1 – Re-Imagining Institutions @TomicahTD @NewAmerica @EvaKaili Jim Newsome Jason Weinstein Annette Nazareth Guy Verhofstadt #BlockchainSummit @BitfuryGeorge @ACTAIglobal @richardbranson pic.twitter.com/3j7fyRM5Em

— Sandra Ro (@srolondon) July 8, 2018

Perhaps not incidentally, lobbyists from the tech world also attend these meetings. Verhofstadt, by the way, is one of who revels in luxury. In the past, V4NA has reported on how the liberal MEP, who has a large family, „saved money” when he had is own home renovated. As it turned out, the Liberal politician reduced the cost of renovations by receiving hundreds of thousands of euros in public money to renew his house.

According to press reports, the Verhofstadt and his family bought the listed building – which he still lives in – in 2011 for €1.5 million, together with two other families. The Knack reports that in 2012

the cost of the renovation of the Verhofstadt residence was estimated at around €820,000, but nearly half of this was paid for by Belgian taxpayers.

The former prime minister also received substantial subsidies for the renovation from the Flemish government, the province of East Flanders and the city of Ghent, totalling €327 784.

But transparency is also the watchword of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who negotiated the tens of billions of euros in EU vaccine procurement in a completely opaque way, via text messages.

The contracts and background agreements with coronavirus vaccine manufacturers Pfizer and BioNTech, which are likely to involve serious infringements, are already being investigated by the European Parliament’s special committee on coronavirus.

However, many details of the case have been in the public domain for some time, with the New York Times reporting in April 2021 that

Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla negotiated in a rather unusual way – exchanging private text messages for months – to finalise a deal for 1.8 billion doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine.

In the end, the mega-agreement with US-based Pfizer and Germany-based BioNTech stated that

Brussels contracted for 900 million doses of vaccine worth $35 billion between the end of 2020 and 2023, with an option for 900 million more.

At €19.5 per vaccine, the price is staggeringly high, as Pfizer has been selling vaccines to countries in the African Union at an „at production price” of just €5.9.

So the deal with the EU will enrich the US and German companies with an extra profit of around €25 billion.

In an interesting development, after the contracts were signed between August and November 2020, in December 2020 Heiko von der Leyen, the European Commission president’s husband, became the medical director of Orgenesis, a US pharma company with close links to Pfizer. This company is active in the cell and gene therapy, which Pfizer’s vaccine is also based on.