Bauzá the Corruption Warrior
“I didn’t get money for the work I did in Qatar…”
The Tip of the European Parliament’s Iceberg
Icebergs are notoriously dangerous and unpredictable, and not just because they can capsize in any moment, without any warning.
With only about one-tenth of their volume above water, icebergs are floating freely around the open ocean as winds and ocean currents move them.
Though scientists have a nice formula to calculate an iceberg’s trajectory, all calculations have a certain element of uncertainty as icebergs deteriorate and change all the time through melting or fracturing. And while we do know that about nine-tenth of the weight is underneath, it is almost impossible to predict or determine the shape and extension of the underwater portion. The larger ones can reach down several dozens of meters and can weigh over 10 million tons.
The Qatargate scandal is just like the tip of the icebergs.
That deceptive one-tenth that is above water. The part that became visible in the dark of the night.
But just like for ships trying to avoid the fate of the Titanic, it is the part below the surface that poses the real threat.
The few weeks since the start of the Qatargate have just cast this uncomfortable truth into the highlight again.
MEPs: “No Transparency, please!” 🙏
The fact that has been known for years now yet, just like with the icebergs until the shocking catastrophe of the Titanic, all those involved tried to pretend ignorance. Denying the fact that the European Parliament, as it is now, is just as big a threat against rule of law as all those countries attacked by it. Or, as some have put it during the last decade, it is not just a few bad apples, but a swamp.
It’s not just a few (unreported) trips to exotic countries. Or fancy dinners and posh hotels. Not even just suitcases full of cash. Of course, especially the last, scream ’corruption’ from miles apart.
It is so-called side-jobs MEPs can take up with little to no control. One report found that at least 39 MEPs earned $100,000 a year from stints at the head of foundations or companies. In 2021 alone. According to Transparency International EU, over one quarter of the bloc’s 705 MEPs have declared side-jobs, collectively worth between €3.9 million and €11.5 million a year.
It is behind-the-doors deals (let’s call them euphemistically ’compromises’) on policies. It is also backroom negotiations about positions. When people get into certain offices and chairs based not on merits or knowledge or experience, but thanks to a carefully balanced deal that gives every MEP and party involved a good enough deal, at the expense of the EU citizens, who suffer the consequences of incompetence and greed. Citizens who are directly or indirectly financing the excesses of MEPs, like paying about € 40 million a year for office supplies as each MEP gets €5,000 a month to cover such costs. Because MEPs like Germany’s Rainer Wieland thought that ’transparency would be a bureaucratic nightmare’.
“It’s not just the head.
It’s not just the bottom.
It’s not just the Socialist fraction.”
European Parliament = Possibilities of Corruption
The functioning of the European Parliament, the legal loopholes and lax regulatory details, combined with little to no oversight and absolutely zero sanctions, all lead to an organization rife with possibilities for corruption. On every level.
While the main protagonist of the Qatargate scandal, Eva Kaili sat very close to the top, many of the politicians involved (or suspected being so) occupied positions lower in the hierarchy.
In this particular case, those involved were mostly (but not exclusively) linked to the AFET and DROI committees (like Pier-Antonio Panzeri). It was also a ’truth universally acknowledged’ (Jane Austin style) for a decade or more that those committees were especially high-risk positions, corruption wise, as the members had a lot of contact with- and traveled a lot to third countries.
Bauzá the Rising Star of Corruption
Like AFET member Spanish MEP José Ramón Bauzá Diaz (Renew Europe), who has just recently suspended the work of the EP-Qatar friendship group (the group he was the president of) and who had suddenly remembered a few trips he failed to report, including trips to Qatar, at least one among those accompanied by freshly investigated Marc Tarabella. He was only one of the dozens of MEPs, who submitted declarations during the two-month period since the Qatargate story broke, but he was the one to declare the most (up to eight such trips, in fact).
An engaged rule of law warrior, Bauzá was a rising star in Spanish politics, having promised to fight corruption and having urged his party, PP, to do the same on many occasions.
He boasted about having been the only regional party leader (even within his own party, PP) to allow only ‘clean’ politicians onto his party’s electoral lists. His motto has been ’zero tolerance for corruption’, along with buzzwords like ’transparency, transparency and transparency. The only possible answer’.
Yet, he himself was investigated for corruption in 2012, being suspected of conflict of interests between his official and business positions and obstruction of justice. He was also accused of using threat and bribery to try to solve the issue, not to mention offering a high-ranking position at IB3 television to his former business partner-slash-creditor, Borja Ruperez. (Just to get it revoked, allegedly after Ruperez failed to buy Bauzá’s winery.)
During the negotiations, Bauzá is thought to have said that he ‘had to sell’ because he was the ‘anti-corruption’ warrior. Later, he tried to deny involvement or the existence of his debt. As local prosecutors closed the case administratively, the truth might never be completely discovered.
The Qatari Connections
In or around that year, 2012, he already had significant contacts with Qatar. At least as the president of the Balearic islands; he actively promoted an investment linked to Qatari political and business circles. The weird business involved non-existent sheiks and shady businessmen and received strong oppositions from green parties and several politicians.
Ever since becoming a MEP, Bauzá has made numerous interventions in the European Parliament in favor of the Gulf countries. He defended his acts with emphasizing the progress in which Qatar was immersed, having repeatedly praised the country for the improvements it did in the fields of labor law and the protection of workers. (That was before the scandals around the World Cup broke.)
After the Qatargate scandal broke, Bauzá tried to whitewash his past, clearing his social media accounts of his previous declarations. He also claimed that he didn’t get money for the work he did for Qatar but as there is no real information or control (not even within the European Parliament on how friendship groups function, this is a claim difficult to prove or rebuke).
Bauzá has also vehemently denied involvement both in the previous and the current scandals. He declared that ’he has never been offered’ anything during his political career and that had he been, he would have acted immediately and forcefully, ’Not only would I not have accepted it, I would have denounced it’, he said.
But as he is also notoriously forgetful, one might be forgiven to have some second thoughts. Transparency is not his strong side, either.
Oh, sorry, I forgot to report…
In 2011, right before becoming the Balearic president, he failed to report that he owned a winery (Divino), a pharmacy and a cosmetics factory and he continued to lead all those businesses for a few months after becoming the leading politician of the country.
In 2019, he failed to report that he was partner in Spanish energy company Gas2Move. His opinion was that ’it didn’t matter’ as ‘energy issues were handled by a committee in the European Parliament he was not the member of’, besides, he ‘thought’ that his business share (under 3 percent, at least what he claimed) was not significant enough.
Interestingly enough, the company gained €10 million in 2020 alone.
Luxury in Quatar
He flew at least four times to Qatar in the last few years, yet somehow reported about those trips only after the scandal broke. Not so surprisingly, each of those trips was fully paid by Qatar, accommodation in luxury hotels (think Sheraton and Ritz-Carlton) included.
There was always a noble reason, no questions. For example, he and Mr. Tarabella travelled to Doha to gain more insight into the lives of Afghan refugee children in Qatar. The last time he happened to be in Qatar was a mere four days before Qatargate occupied the front pages.
And he was such an enthusiastic fan of Qatar Airways that he boasted on his own Twitter account about the restart of flights referring to that particular airline instead of hailing the very same thing done by Iberia Air (Spain’s flagship carrier).
José Ramón Bauza is not the only one.
Neither is Eva Kaili.
MEPs from all over the political spectrum had been caught in the grey zone, from Poland’s Radoslaw Sikorski, to France’s Sandro Gozi or Finland’s Miapetra Kumpula-Nari.
The only question is whether the Qatargate would turn into the European Parliament’s own Titanic moment?
