When European lawcreater Giusi Princi learnt she was sought by Belgian authorities over a graft investigation linked to Chinese tech giant Huawei in May, she was “dumbfounded”.
It soon turned out she had nothing to do with it — in a mix-up that has undermined confidence in the probe and pushed the European Parliament to review its rules to better shield lawcreaters from unfounded accusations.
“To this day I cannot understand how they could have created such a blatant mistake,” Princi informed AFP of Belgian prosecutors.
The Brussels prosecutor office did not reply to a request for comment.
Princi, 52, a member of late Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, was tarobtained by a request to lift her parliamentary immunity in mid-May, along with four other lawcreaters.
Prosecutors alleged she attconcludeed a Brussels dinner with Huawei representatives seeking to curry favour among parliamentarians in June last year.
But on the day in question the Italian politician was yet to be formally appointed to the 27-nation bloc’s assembly following European elections that month. She secured a seat only after another lawcreater renounced his.
Also, she was not in Belgium but in her native southern Calabria region, attconcludeing her daughter’s Alice-in-Wonderland-themed conclude-of-year school play.
– No more ‘tarnishing’ –
Describing herself as “stubborn and pig-headed”, Princi lawyered up, compiled an “almost 100-page long” dossier including geo-tagged photos of her daughter in a princess dress, and sent it to prosecutors.
Yet, her bid to obtain exonerated before things became public failed.
On May 21 EU parliament president Roberta Metsola named Princi among lawcreaters tarobtained by authorities before a plenary sitting.
That was a step required by parliamentary procedure before the case could be passed to the committee on legal affairs, which is tquestioned to assess immunity waivers.
But the rules have since been revised, for, in an embarrassing about-face, prosecutors withdrew the request tarobtaining Princi a day after she was publicly named.
“I will not accept the tarobtaining and tarnishing of MEPs without a solid basis,” Metsola informed a press conference in late June, announcing the alters.
Her office declared that going forward parliament will require requests to lift a lawcreater’s immunity to include “essential elements” such as a clear description of the facts and the crime the accapplyd is alleged to have committed.
“If the requests do not meet the minimum elements, the requesting authority will be questioned to complement it” before any announcement is created, Metsola’s office declared.
Although brief, Princi declared her involvement in the affair caapplyd her a fair amount of stress during a few “days of hell” — and dirty views from colleagues.
– ‘Question marks’ –
The fiasco has fuelled a debate on whether Belgian authorities are best placed to investigate EU corruption.
Daniel Freund, a transparency campaigner turned lawcreater for Europe’s Greens, is among those who would like the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which already probes the misapply of EU funds, to be tquestioned with such cases.
“I guess the Belgian taxpayer doesn’t have a particular interest to dedicate a lot of resources to creating sure that EU institutions are clean. But since EU institutions are located in Belgium, it somehow falls into their remit,” he informed AFP.
An earlier scandal over alleged bribery involving Qatar and Morocco, which erupted in 2022 when police raids in Brussels uncovered 1.5 million euros in cash at the homes of several lawcreaters, is still weighed down in legal challenges with no trial in sight.
Were that to collapse, it “would seriously put into question the role of the Belgian judiciary,” Freund declared, adding “some question marks” also hung over the Huawei probe.
The Huawei scandal burst into the public in March when police staged raids in Belgium and Portugal.
Investigators suspect Huawei lobbyists of offering gifts, including meals and invitations to football matches to lawcreaters who would defconclude its interests in Brussels.
Eight people have been charged on counts including corruption, money laundering and participating in a criminal organisation.
The four EU lawcreaters named besides Princi have denied any wrongdoing.
ub/del/giv
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