Untold: Opus Dei - Introducing Untold: Power for Sale
Episode Date: May 16, 2024Introducing Power for Sale, a new season of Untold from the Financial Times. In Untold: Power for Sale, host Valentina Pop and a team of FT correspondents from all over Europe investigate what ha...ppened in the Qatargate scandal, where EU lawmakers were accused of accepting payments from Qatar to whitewash its image.Untold: Power for Sale airs May 29. Follow wherever you listen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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I remember where I was when the news broke.
I was watching the World Cup when a Belgian news alert popped on my phone.
It was a Friday in Brussels, December 2022.
Vice President of the European Parliament has been arrested.
It's a series of raids on properties across Brussels.
A senior member of the European Parliament and three EU officials
have been charged with corruption, money laundering, and participating in a criminal organization.
The alerts were shocking. Officers sealed, computers seized, lawmakers, their families and staffers,
jailed. Prosecutors have searched 16 houses and seized $631,800 in Brussels as part of the probe.
They reportedly found bags of cash.
Never before had there been anything like this at the European Parliament.
Several people accused of receiving money.
and gifts from a Gulf state.
The state in question is widely reported to be Qatar.
She was, you know, this very innocent character
who was maybe manipulated by some of the other suspects.
Money is not illegal.
It depends.
How did you get them? What for?
There must be culturally something very wrong
if you consider this to be normal.
Qatar was a slave state,
that workers were going to die in their thousands.
Little couple is like the kingpin.
Yeah, exactly.
No mistake. The European Parliament is under attack.
European democracy is under attack.
And our way of open, free democratic societies are under attack.
Elections are coming up for the European Parliament.
But this scandal has been like a gateway,
opening up to bigger and bigger questions.
Was there a corruption ring?
Have EU lawmakers been bribed by foreign powers?
Is the European Parliament for sale?
for sale.
I'm Valentina Pop, and from the Financial Times,
this is untold.
Power for sale.
Coming May 29th.