A high-profile bribery case, built by the Belgian authorities over more than a year with the help of their secret services, has uncovered what prosecutors say was a cash-for-favors scheme at the heart of the E.U. It has highlighted the vulnerabilities in an opaque, notoriously bureaucratic system that decides policies for 450 million people in the world’s richest club of nations.
Now, Eva Kaili, a Greek politician and a vice president of the European Parliament, is in jail, accused of trading political decisions for cash. The Belgian authorities charged her last weekend alongside her partner, Francesco Giorgi, and two others in an investigation into Qatari influence. Police raids uncovered €1.5 million in cash.
Weeks earlier, she had been spotted in the ultra-selective V.V.I.P. box at the World Cup in Qatar. That same week, in Brussels, she delivered an impassioned defense of the Middle Eastern nation against criticism of its exploitation of migrant workers who had built the tournament’s stadiums, chastising Qatar’s critics as bullies.
Kalli’s lawyer, Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, said she was innocent. “She simply had no knowledge of the cash,” he said. “She did Qatar no favors at all, because all her positions were, in fact, in line with E.U. policy on Qatar.”
The Times spoke to two dozen lawmakers, E.U. and Belgian government officials, and aides directly familiar with the case and the people involved, and examined private correspondence, years of social media posts, policy drafts and voting records.
