I sincerely hope that this latest investigation, involving the European Union’s External Action Service, launched by EU investigators and entrusted to the Belgian judiciary, comes to an end, and quickly. It would be an exceptional, unique event amid the sea of doubts, uncertainties, and unproven accusations that have been spread in recent years by Belgium against the European institutions.
In short, it would be a first if the investigators prove that Federica Mogherini and Stefano Sannino are guilty of something, or, as I am convinced, they have to admit they were wrong and cannot prove anything. The supervision of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) may offer some additional guarantees.
Belgian investigators seem to have it in for the EU institutions, especially when Italians, preferably socialists, are involved, and the institutions offer no resistance at the sight of the first policeman, lifting immunities, opening offices, and giving up every safeguard to look transparent. The result of this perverse system has been, to date, to discredit all the institutions affected, without opening a single trial and, in many cases, without a single accusation made, after years.
Now the accusations against Mogherini and Sannino are, as usual, vague. In essence, they allege that the EU’s External Service, whose Secretary‑General at the time was an Italian diplomat, seen as one of the Union’s heavyweights in the field, favored the College of Bruges, led by Mogherini (herself a former head of the Service), in assigning training responsibilities and, apparently, providing lodging services for junior European diplomats, ahead of five rival institutes that had entered the tender. We are talking about insignificant sums for the Union’s budget, apparently 700 thousand euros a year for six years. Despite the corruption accusation, it has not been disclosed who would have taken money to do precisely what.
For decades, the College of Bruges has stood in Flanders, in a charming town, dedicated to training the elite of European institutions, boasting an outstanding curriculum that speaks for itself. Its head is the former chief of European diplomacy and, when European diplomacy issues a call for tenders to find the best place to send its pupils for further training, it is easy to assume that Mogherini knew from her own experience, which had ended only a few months earlier, what the EEAS needed and was therefore in a position to make a competitive offer.
I don’t want to stand here and defend Mogherini or Sannino “in the trial;” I know nothing about how this tender was conducted. However, I do want to defend Mogherini and Sannino, Eva Kaili, Niccolò Figà Talamanca, Salvatore de Meo from a justice system that throws around heavy accusations over fundamentally petty matters (though criminal if proven), then stalls, produces no evidence, and never sends anyone to trial, thus discrediting people and institutions (which do not know how to defend themselves).
I remember the case of MEP Giusi Princi, where Parliament was asked to authorize proceedings after months of inquiry and vast sums of money spent, causing severe damage to the public image of a woman in politics. Just hours after the request, Princi, accused only of joining a dinner in Brussels, discovered the charges and sent Belgian investigators local papers showing photos of her at an event in Reggio Calabria, on the very day of that Brussels dinner. The investigators did not realize this, but promptly withdrew the request for authorization to proceed.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
