The EU has a problem, and it\u2019s not clear anyone wants to do anything about it. <\/p>\n
Politically, it\u2019s \u201ccloser to how the Vatican and U.N. operate,\u201d said Denis MacShane, a former British Europe minister, who saw up close how the bloc functioned. And both of those \u201chave been wracked by impunity and corruption allegations in recent years.\u201d<\/p>\n
But even the Vatican\u2019s white smoke could be considered a transparent piece of communication when compared with the smoke and mirrors that often obscure reality in Brussels.<\/p>\n
Downright fraud<\/p>\n
To draw up a list of the bloc\u2019s problems with corruption (both large and small, and in the broadest sense of the word) is to detail a horror show of bad practice: the revolving doors between industry and the EU, nepotism in the bloc\u2019s most powerful institutions, harassment at work, downright fraud.<\/p>\n
The thing is, the EU has plenty of oversight bodies that are supposed to sort out this kind of stuff \u2015 the ombudsman, the public prosecutor, the parliamentary committees, even an entire court system. But when they call out bad, or even illegal behavior (which they do), it often seems not to make a blind bit of difference.<\/p>\n
All this would be bad enough, but it also serves to compound a fall-of-Rome mood that feeds the narrative of nationalist politicians: From Budapest to Paris, the failings of Brussels, and the lack of any comeuppance, give anti-European rhetoric an easy ride.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe EU institutions\u2019 ethical insouciance and political unaccountability has produced a culture of impunity that not only harms EU citizens\u2019 trust in democratic institutions, but also lends itself to be weaponized by anti-EU politicians both within and outside of the Union,\u201d said Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU law at HEC Paris, and founder of the Good Lobby NGO. <\/p>\n
While national governments live and die at the ballot box \u2015 meaning that corruption and a lack of accountability often come back to bite them \u2015 the EU\u2019s world is murkier and more opaque.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just in the past week or so, the bloc has been rattled (or rather, apparently not rattled in the slightest) by two scandals, each of which could easily have toppled a government if it had happened in domestic politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/10033832-1024x683.jpg\")
The EU\u2019s General Court ruled that the Commission was wrong to deny journalists access to President von der Leyen\u2019s texts with Pfizer\u2019s CEO. | Clemens Bilan\/EPA-EFE<\/p>\n
The first concerned the woman at the very top, the person with the the duty to uphold EU treaties: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The EU\u2019s General Court ruled<\/a> that the Commission had been wrong to withhold from the public text messages exchanged between von der Leyen and the CEO of the drug giant Pfizer, Albert Bourla, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic \u2014 and just before the company bagged the largest EU procurement contract of all time.<\/p>\n The full details of the vaccine contract remain secret, despite protests from MEPs who (successfully) took the Commission to court<\/a> in a separate transparency case \u2014\u00a0which the executive is challenging.\u00a0<\/p>\n But will we ever see the texts? Almost certainly not. <\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not saying the fish stinks from the top in this case, but it\u2019s a culture which is pervasive in that there is an attempt to block transparency,\u201d says Herwig Hofmann, a professor of European public law at the University of Luxembourg, speaking about the EU institutions.<\/p>\n The text message ruling, dubbed \u201cPfizergate\u201d in EU circles, came around the same time as the bloc\u2019s OLAF anti-fraud watchdog found<\/a> the European asylum agency had been restructuring whole departments so senior staff could move friends into management positions. Any consequences? You must be kidding. Case closed, with no disciplinary measures taken.<\/p>\n The EU operates within \u201climits\u201d of administrative, political and judicial accountability, said Hofmann. \u201cThere are, of course, specific difficulties when it comes to the EU because of the great complexity and the amount of different bodies and agencies and actors we have nowadays.\u201d<\/p>\n Commission \u2018coup\u2019<\/p>\n While Hofmann says he doesn\u2019t believe the culture is set by the top, you could be forgiven for reaching that conclusion.<\/p>\n One of the biggest scandals the Commission has faced in recent times involved the 2018 fast-tracked appointment<\/a> to the position of secretary general of Martin Selmayr, chief of staff to then-Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker \u2014 <\/strong>a man known unaffectionately as the Monster of the Berlaymont (the name of the Commission\u2019s headquarters) for his intimidating, hierarchical approach.<\/p>\n Selmayr was one of Juncker\u2019s closest aides and the architect of his campaign to become president. His appointment to the top job was added to the agenda of a meeting of commissioners at the last minute to prevent them from organizing a revolt.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the time, critics \u2015 of which there were many \u2015 described it as a \u201ccoup.\u201d<\/p>\n Emily O\u2019Reilly, the then-European ombudsman, found four instances of maladministration, including a staggering sleight of hand where the Commission arranged a selection procedure for a new deputy secretary general merely to make Selmayr eligible for the chief\u2019s position.<\/p>\n Over at the European Parliament, the EU\u2019s only directly elected body (so theoretically the one that might find itself most accountable), President Roberta Metsola has spoken frequently of her pride in being only the third woman to be its boss. She pledged to \u201cmake it easier\u201d for the women who come after her.<\/p>\n But so far she seems to have made it easier only for her brother-in-law, whom she appointed<\/a> chief of staff last year. (The announcement was postponed for a few months because the \u201cQatargate\u201d cash-for-influence scandal \u2014\u00a0not to be confused with the \u201cHuaweigate\u201d cash-for-influence scandal<\/a> or the aforementioned \u201cPfizergate\u201d text message transparency scandal<\/a> \u2014 hit the Parliament at around the same time. \u201cI am not sure adding the sobriquet \u2018-gate\u2019 to any story of bad behavior in the EP or Commission is helpful,\u201d MacShane said.)<\/p>\n To be fair, Metsola has won some support for clamping down on harassment, but some say the sanctions placed on MEPs for bad behavior \u2014 docking their (albeit not-to-be-sniffed-at) daily allowances, rather than their salaries \u2014 are all a bit half-hearted.<\/p>\n \u201cThat doesn\u2019t serve as a deterrent because, as evidenced in the last mandate, when President Metsola sanctioned an MEP for psychologically harassing her assistant, she did it again a couple [of] years later,\u201d said Nick Aiossa, director at Transparency International EU, an NGO.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s a rare case when actual sanctions are given,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Except, even then they weren\u2019t: The EU court actually reversed<\/a> the decision this year because of the way the case was compiled. The MEP in question, Monica Semedo, always strongly denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n Scapegoats<\/p>\n If all this sounds as if quite a lot of people are getting away with quite a lot of bad stuff, well, there might be something in that.<\/p>\n Maybe it\u2019s a consequence of how the EU is structured. First, there\u2019s the sheer complexity of the setup (what even is comitology?). \u201cThe EU is particularly unaccountable,\u201d said one Parliament official interviewed for this article. In part, the labyrinthine system is what makes it \u201cvery opaque,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the fact that power still resides with national governments. For them, having scapegoats in Brussels is handy. It also just takes too much effort to intervene. There\u2019s a strong impulse therefore to maintain the status quo.<\/p>\n \u201cDomestic \u2015 not EU \u2015 political representatives are those who essentially determine whether, to what extent, and when EU issues penetrate the national political debate without being subject to corresponding public scrutiny or accountability,\u201d Alemanno said.<\/p>\n But while that can be a \u201creassuring\u201d tool for national governments, it comes with \u201chigh costs, including making the EU more vulnerable than it could be.\u201d<\/p>\n And there\u2019s a further complication, which national politics doesn\u2019t suffer from when it comes to investigating impropriety.\u00a0Some conflate criticism of the institutions, or of the conduct of individuals, with an attack on the concept of the EU itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ex-Ombudsman O\u2019Reilly, who criticized what she described as a culture<\/a> of \u201cpowerful consiglieri\u201d \u2015 a word for trusted confidants that was originally applied to advisers to Mafia bosses \u2015 at the top of the Commission, also felt compelled to explain that she wasn\u2019t attacking the very concept of the EU when she came after its officials for their conduct.<\/p>\n \u201cI know I seem very critical, but I come at it as someone with immense gratitude toward the EU,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI would not have had the career that I\u2019ve had as an Irish woman without our joining the EU and with[out] the EU dragging my government kicking and screaming into the 20th century in relation to women and labor laws. So I see it as a potentially amazing moral force.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo when I see it acting in particular ways \u2026 that concerns me. And that\u2019s where I come from, not from a wish to be critical for the sake of it,\u201d she told POLITICO last year.<\/p>\n It has led to a certain paranoia: In the aftermath of POLITICO\u2019s reporting on Hololei\u2019s flights, one reader working in the Brussels bubble said earnestly that some in the Commission thought Russia was behind the story. To eliminate any doubt, it wasn\u2019t. (Nor this one, by the way.)<\/p>\n Something with no teeth<\/p>\n EU oversight bodies are putting pressure on von der Leyen, who pledged that transparency would be a core part of her mandate when she became head of the EU\u2019s executive branch in 2019.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But she has repeatedly come under fire for backsliding on commitments, like the promise to set up a new ethics body with enforcement powers. O\u2019Reilly wasn\u2019t too optimistic, saying she expected \u201csomething with no teeth, something that will possibly sit there passively, wait for complaints to come in.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, in the first meeting of the Commission within her second term, which started on Dec. 1, von der Leyen signed off on a rule that will actually make it easier to block access to documents \u2015 another decision being challenged by NGO ClientEarth.<\/p>\n While EU judges have the power to reverse, or impose, huge fines on companies, on countries and even on the EU itself for breaching the bloc\u2019s treaties, it has been far meeker when it comes to individuals.<\/p>\n So, for example, when it comes to the Pfizergate texts scandal, despite the court ruling against the Commission saying that messaging should be treated like any other document, \u201cI don\u2019t expect any effect on her, or her approach,\u201d a diplomat from an EU country said of von der Leyen.<\/p>\n Even when it comes to transparency, the effect of the ruling might simply be that those who request documents receive a \u201cbit more elaborate\u201d explanations as to why they\u2019ve been refused access, the diplomat continued.<\/p>\n And so it continues.<\/p>\n \u2018Throw the scoundrels out\u2019<\/p>\n For decades, capitals and the Brussels core have been involved in a push-and-pull over where power resides and how much the EU centrally, rather than its national governments, should be democratically accountable. While there are arguments for both, a lack of accountability at the European level doesn\u2019t help make officials feel they are answerable to a restless electorate.<\/p>\n \u201cEven the basic premise of representative democracy, that on election day voters can \u2018throw the scoundrels out,\u2019 that is to replace the government, does not work in the EU,\u201d said Alemanno, the EU law professor.<\/p>\n \u201cCitizens are deprived not only of influence at the EU level, but also of any knowledge and understanding of EU politics that would allow for popular scrutiny and effective democratic control.\u201d<\/p>\n Some believe that lack of understanding comes from weak media coverage of EU politics.<\/p>\n \u201cIt tends to be opinion columns rather than legwork reporting,\u201d said MacShane, the former Europe minister, who served a prison sentence in the U.K. for filing bogus expense claims. \u201cMost Brussels reporting I see in U.K. or European papers is the traditional singleton foreign correspondent type reporting.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite that, he argues, Brussels isn\u2019t so uniquely bad. \u201cOver the years I have seen far more impunity in national governments, even local governments, than there was in Brussels.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a low bar, but it is a bar.<\/p>\n MEPs, however, aren\u2019t doing the \u201cnecessary work\u201d of holding the Commission to account, he said. \u201cAll Eurocrats from commissioners downwards are appointed on a party political basis, so the party groups defend their own.\u201d<\/p>\n Aiossa, from Transparency International, also singled out the Parliament as more problematic than the Commission.<\/p>\n \u201cThis culture that has been able to fester over the years \u2026 has allowed for a series of scandals, Qatargate, Russiagate, Huawei, without any kind of meaningful reforms to address the next scandal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He added that some \u201cbasic rules\u201d need to be reformed, including a ban on MEPs having any side activities with organizations that lobby the EU.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a simple ask, but very controversial among MEPs, who have very lucrative side jobs with many companies and industries that are trying to influence EU policy making,\u201d Aiossa said.<\/p>\n If a smaller second chamber were to be created in the Parliament consisting of national lawmakers \u2014 similar to the St\u00e4nderat in Switzerland \u2014 it might be \u201cbetter placed to have oversight of full accountability,\u201d MacShane said.<\/p>\n But before things get better, they may get worse.<\/p>\n Depending on whom you ask, a clampdown on NGO funding by the Commission is either a right-wing attack on the EU\u2019s climate and health agendas, or a legitimate attempt to make their financing more transparent.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no doubt that Brussels NGOs are one of the few groups that try to hold the EU institutions to account, something they might find harder to do now the Commission is blocking cash for lobbying the EU.<\/p>\n \u201cThe current persecution of NGOs is only going to aggravate this situation,\u201d the Parliament official said. \u201cAnd the ones behind it know that very well.\u201d<\/p>\n In the meantime, you might be wondering: Whatever happened to the Estonian official, Hololei?<\/p>\n The French paper Lib\u00e9ration reported that OLAF found he\u2019d exchanged confidential details<\/a>\u00a0about a major aviation deal with Qatar in return for gifts for himself and his inner circle, including stays in a five-star hotel in Doha.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/h_55196421-1024x724.jpg\")
Martin Selmayr, then-secretary-general of the European Commission, behind then-President Jean-Claude Juncker, in 2019 | Patrick Seeger\/EPA<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Politico8320-copy-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/9909509-1024x671.jpg\")
For decades, capitals and the Brussels core have been involved in a push-and-pull over where power resides. | Stephanie Lecocq\/EFE via EPA<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/11193627-1024x683.jpg\")
Brussels\u2019 failings, and the lack of comeuppance, give anti-European rhetoric an easy ride. | Stephanie Lecocq\/EFE via EPA<\/p>\n