Fraud busters investigate European Parliament’s most powerful group

 

Fraud busters investigate European Parliament’s most powerful group

 

Police zero in on European People’s Party chief Manfred Weber’s 2019 bid for Commission president.

 

Belgian police are investigating three individuals connected to Manfred Weber’s 2019 campaign. |

 

October 30, 2024 2:31 pm CET

By Sarah Wheaton, Elisa Braun, Eddy Wax and Max Griera

https://www.politico.eu/article/fraud-busters-eppo-investigate-eu-parliaments-most-powerful-group-epp-manfred-weber/

 

BRUSSELS — The EU’s top prosecutors are looking into accusations of fraud and corruption, including the misuse of EU funds related to the 2019 European Parliamentary election campaign of Manfred Weber, one of the most influential politicians in Brussels and the leader of the Parliament’s largest group, the European People’s Party.

 

The investigation is being led by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), which is tasked with rooting out criminal abuse of EU money, two Belgian police officers and a spokesperson from the Belgian prosecutor’s office told POLITICO.

 

Belgian police are investigating three individuals, including two high-ranking ones, connected to Weber’s 2019 campaign, according to people involved with the campaign questioned by police about their fellow campaigners’ roles and actions and documents viewed by POLITICO.

 

The inquiry is focused on whether the three individuals improperly received payments from both the EPP party — a pan-European umbrella organization of conservative national parties — and the EPP group, the party’s representation in the European Parliament.

 

Money for parliament groups, which is tax-payer funded, is not supposed to be spent on political campaigns.

 

EPPO is working with the Belgian police. A Belgian police document seen by POLITICO calls witnesses to discuss criminal allegations including “forgery of a public document,” “forgery of public documents by a civil servant in the performance of duties,” “breach of trust,” “fraud,” and “public corruption.”

 

The EPP group denied knowledge of the probe. “We have not been approached by the EPPO, or by the Belgian authorities, or indeed by any other law enforcement agency, about any possible investigation of any kind,” said a statement from the EPP Group. “The EPP Group imposes rigorous standards in the implementation of its budget and voluntarily subjects itself to scrutiny to ensure compliance.”

 

Campaign job shuffle

In recent weeks, police officers from the Belgian anti-corruption office interviewed witnesses who worked on Weber’s 2019 European election campaign as the EPP’s lead candidate. They asked about three named individuals who “may have been compensated by the EPP group while potentially providing services for the European People’s Party related to the 2019 campaign,” police said according to the document (POLITICO is not naming the individuals).

 

Officially, the two high-ranking Weber aides named in the document left their Parliament-paid jobs for the first half of 2019 to take on roles at the party. The third named individual worked only for the party both before Weber’s campaign started and after it ended. Weber is not one of the three named in the documents seen by POLITICO.

 

One of the named people, speaking on behalf of all three, said they were “not aware of any investigation” and denied that the three received any compensation from the EPP group during the campaign. The named person reiterated that the high-ranking Weber aides had left their Parliament roles during the campaign, and provided some documentation to show they had taken this formal step.

 

Weber himself has been open that he draws a double salary for his dual roles, a point of controversy even within his political family. In addition to the approximately €8,000 net he earns a month as an MEP, he also makes €14,120 as EPP president, according to his most recent financial disclosure (and that doesn’t include the thousands in monthly allowances).

 

All of the people named in the police document worked for the party during Weber’s campaign. Moving from official roles to political campaigns has become standard practice in recent years as top EU politicians bring along institutional staff for the campaign period. For example, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s top cabinet official and a more junior official both took a leave from their Commission posts to work with the EPP during her European election campaign in 2024. Similarly, Weber brought over a handful of staff from the Parliament during his 2019 campaign.

 

The EPP’s first-place finish in the elections in May 2019 theoretically put Weber in place to be European Commission president under the so-called Spitzenkandidat — or lead candidate — system, but EU leaders ultimately chose von der Leyen instead.

 

Instead, Weber solidified his power within the EPP family, of which von der Leyen is also a leading member. Already chair of the EPP parliamentary faction since 2014, he took over as president of the campaign-oriented party in 2022.

 

No one has been formally charged.

 

“The EPP Group prides itself in extending its full cooperation” to legal authorities, a spokesperson for Weber and the EPP groups said in a statement to POLITICO said, adding that no external auditors “currently have any open cases of alleged misuse of funds.”

 

Layered inquiry

EPPO is in charge of investigating serious crimes affecting the financial interests of the European Union and liaises with national law enforcement for its investigations.

 

Asked about the EPP investigation, a spokesperson for EPPO, which usually does not comment on ongoing cases, said: “We have an ongoing investigation into allegations of misuse of EU funds committed in Belgium by members of a political group of the European Parliament. However, at this stage, this investigation is merely into facts and there are no suspects. Whenever we can say something about any of our investigations, we will do so proactively.”

 

Asked about the EPP case, the spokesperson from the Belgian Prosecutor’s office declined to elaborate.

 

“The investigation is being led by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and therefore I cannot comment on the case,” said Eric Van Der Sypt, the spokesperson from the Belgian Prosecutor’s office.

 

Last year, Belgian and German police raided the Brussels headquarters of EPP as part of an investigation into a suspicion of bribery in business dealings during the 2019 elections. The investigation was led by the German anti-corruption authority but was dismissed as “baseless” by the EPP. There is no evidence that the EPPO investigation is related to this.

 

The investigation comes as Weber is being challenged by internal dissenters over his management of the party, which he is set to reform in the coming months, and as he shakes up the organization of the parliamentary group by installing a new secretary general.