The Belgian Socialist MEP Maria Arena announced Wednesday her resignation as chairwoman of the subcommittee on Human Rights of the European Parliament in order not to affect the work of the parliamentary committee after her name has been linked to several defendants for alleged bribes from Qatar to MEPs, although she is not being formally investigated by the Belgian justice system and maintains her seat as an MEP.
Already last December, Arena announced through her Twitter profile that she was leaving «temporarily» the presidency of this subcommittee «after the revelations of suspicions of corruption linked to Qatar in the European Parliament» and that one of her parliamentary assistants was investigated «in the framework of this matter».
She said then that she was taking this step temporarily «until everything is clarified» and this Wednesday she confirmed that her resignation as chairwoman of the subcommittee is definitive, in a statement sent to the Belgian agency. While waiting for the MEPs to elect another president, it will be the first vice-president of the subcommittee who will provisionally assume the position.
However, the Socialist MEP has not been charged nor has the Belgian justice system requested the European Parliament to waive her immunity, as it has done with other MEPs involved, but her name appears as a frequent contact of the former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, whom the investigators consider to be the main actor in the network to reach other MEPs and parliamentary staff.
Panzeri, founder of the NGO ‘Fight Impunity’ through which contacts were made with MEPs, is the main defendant in the investigation that was revealed last December, when the Belgian justice carried out the first arrests and searches in offices and homes of people linked to the European Parliament.
In addition to Panzeri, three other people remain in custody in Belgium accused of belonging to a criminal organization, money laundering and corruption, including the dismissed vice-president of the European Parliament Eva Kaili and her partner, the parliamentary assistant Francesco Giorgi. The fourth detainee is Niccolo Figa-Talamanca, head of the NGO ‘No Peace without Justice’.
In addition, in the plenary session next week in Strasbourg (France), the European Parliament will activate the formal procedure to process the request of the Belgian Justice to suspend the parliamentary immunity of two other MEPs, the Belgian Marc Tarabella and the Italian Andrea Cozzolino, to be investigated.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
