[HN Gopher] European parliament VP taken into custody
___________________________________________________________________
European parliament VP taken into custody
Author : spapas82
Score : 162 points
Date : 2022-12-10 13:27 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dw.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dw.com)
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| Damn it, those South Europeans again!
| motohagiography wrote:
| Am I the only one who, whenever I read stories about politicians
| being arrested, I just assume that their backing coalition wants
| them replaced with someone who can enrich the coalition more
| boldly, and are just calling in the kompromat lever that
| qualified the politician to be put in the fronting position in
| the first place?
|
| Nobody would ever give authority or levers of power to someone
| they couldn't control, and the job of someone in power is to keep
| the rewards coming to the people who keep them there. Corruption
| is a scourge, but in most places it's the cultural norm and not a
| deviation.
|
| The pitch for leadership is, "I can return this much to you for
| this long, and here is the kompromat that will force me to
| resign, as collateral." Political leadership isn't the power,
| it's the symbolic meaning of becoming the name in history you
| believe is meaningful. Power is invisible and only felt.
| Acquiring that is a very different path, and its job is to keep
| the front of the house sustained and managed. The debate and and
| policies other than spending are just a cheap spectacle.
|
| So on this MEP being busted, I'm "Shocked, shocked!" to find out
| there was corruption going on in there.
| oriettaxx wrote:
| Omg
|
| did you listen to what that member of the EU parliament says in
| the interview in the video? - "there is a very large majority of
| parliamentarians who do not that dirty game" -
|
| a "large majority" do not? ... so a minority does?
| jabiko wrote:
| I think its important to know that there are 14 Vice-Presidents
| of the European Parliament in total. One of them was taken into
| custody.
| wizeman wrote:
| > there are 14 Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament in
| total
|
| Of course. First rule in government spending: why have one
| vice-president when you can have 14 at fourteen times the
| price?
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Primarily the purpose is to make sure that the different
| political views as well as different EU memeber states and
| regions are represented. Together they have to be able to
| represent the whole spread views and cultures, for being
| respected inside parliament as well as by the public.
|
| Whether 14 vice plus one president is the sweet spot one can
| argue, but this is two vice presidents per political group in
| Parlament.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Different views across all the EU member states are
| represented through the MEPs.
|
| 14 VPs is just a small part of the EU gravy train.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| For policy making, yes, MEPs are the ones voting. For
| administrative tasks, deciding on parliament agenda, etc.
| you need a smaller group for being practical in decision
| making. Starting each session with a debate on the day's
| agenda (while in some situations it is a relevant police
| decision which has to be taken by parliament) and
| adminsitrative routine tasks is quite inefficient.
|
| Now the parliament has 7 different political groups
| (fractions) and a bunch of independent members. Having
| two VPs per fraction is somewhat a compromise between
| true representative (which would need more people) or
| ignoring more (they are already ignoring independents)
|
| And yes, of course, you could also force less fractions,
| but fractions covering too broad of a spectrum are quite
| problematic too (see spread in the two parties in the US
| system ...)
|
| And in cost or whatever it is a small part of what
| parliament costs anyways and quite neglectible.
| dijit wrote:
| It's easy to paint it this way, but consider the fact that
| concentrations of power in few people almost always leads to
| gross corruption in manners that are uncorrectable (except
| with revolution).
|
| This is why some people do not want small government. Not
| because they argue that large government is efficient or
| cheap: it's that there are more checks and balances on power.
|
| I think CGP Greys video on "rules for rulers" illustrates the
| point quite clearly. https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs
| ipaddr wrote:
| We see this across the Atlanic in Canada where each
| government starts off with few cabinet minister. After a
| few elections new departments are setup, everyone in the
| government party ends up as a minister or assistant. The
| bigger the government usually the more corruption until
| they change parties and repeat again.
| tupolef wrote:
| So we multiplied the price of the ticket to corrupt the
| whole parliament. But you know what, actually this
| parliament is made in such a way that there is no need to
| bribe the majority of the parties. It is enough to have a
| small blocking or active percentage.
|
| On the other hand, at the European commission, where the
| real power is, we don't have 14 presidents and there have
| been corruptions, serious corruptions.
|
| The truth is that there is 14 positions because it was
| necessary to give empty chairs to all the political parties
| of the member countries. In Europe, no politician, no
| matter how many times he or she has been defeated or
| scandalized, has difficulty finding a job.
| matthewmorgan wrote:
| Each one being paid EUR22,122.10 monthly, apparently
| arlort wrote:
| That seems a bit high, are you sure you're not confusing it
| with the President/Vice president of the commission?
| oezi wrote:
| As one of the highest political posts in Europe and being
| paid less than most FAANG engineers.
| reacharavindh wrote:
| Which FAANG pays EUR22k _Monthly?!_
| oytis wrote:
| In SF, not in Europe
| tester756 wrote:
| depends if we're talking before/post tax, right?
| ipaddr wrote:
| But with more power to being imn bags of cash for
| policies voted. Not paying people in power can be more
| costly. There is a reason why faangs pay so high, it
| reduces corruption
| capableweb wrote:
| Somehow I doubt "most" FAANG engineers pull in 280,000
| USD per year. I'll give you that many are, but "most"?
| kgwgk wrote:
| I have no idea if the data is any good, but this puts the
| median at $220k-250k (and much more for Netflix):
|
| https://medium.com/@mikldd/data-salaries-at-faang-
| companies-...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| brycewray wrote:
| Upvoted simply for the _Contact_ paraphrase/reference. :-)
| kzrdude wrote:
| EP needs diversity in leadership to be legitimate to the
| european peoples, since they are from many different
| countries.
| arlort wrote:
| The article is from 2014 but shouldn't have changed much:
| https://transparency.eu/how-much-does-an-mep-make/
|
| The difference between an MEP and a VP seems to be 800EUR /
| month, not a whole lot and it's a way for each party to be
| represented in the administrative body of the parliament
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| 800 gross a month is probably a life changing amount to at
| least half of all European citizens.
| layer8 wrote:
| The argument is that saving the 800EUR / month for the 14
| VPs won't make much of a difference for the European
| citizens.
| wizeman wrote:
| We are not paying 800 EUR / month for these 14 VPs, we
| are paying more than 22.000 EUR / month, each, which is
| somewhere between 3.7 and 4.6 million EUR / year in
| total, for the 14 VPs.
|
| That can definitely make a difference in many European
| citizens' lives (although, not all Europeans at the same
| time, of course).
| layer8 wrote:
| The argument was about whether there should be 14 VPs:
| "why have one vice-president when you can have 14 at
| fourteen times the price?" If they weren't VPs, they
| would still be regular MPs, so only a 800 EUR difference.
| wizeman wrote:
| > If they weren't VPs, they would still be regular MPs,
| so only a 800 EUR difference.
|
| But if those 14 VPs were MPs then there wouldn't be the
| need for 14 other MPs.
|
| Which means that the difference per VP would be the price
| of an MP + 800 EUR (of difference between VP and MP),
| which is exactly the price of a VP.
|
| In other words, no, the difference would still be ~3.7 -
| 4.6 million / year in total.
| layer8 wrote:
| Being a VP is just a role you can assume as an MEP.
| Reducing the number of VPs won't reduce the number of
| MEPs. Reducing the number of MEPs is orthogonal to
| reducing the number of VPs.
| drexlspivey wrote:
| > The monthly gross MEP salary, under the single statute,
| is EUR9,386.29 (from 01/01/2022). It is paid out of the
| Parliament's budget. All MEPs pay EU tax and insurance
| contributions, after which the salary is EUR7,316.63.
|
| First result on Google for MEP salary. Where did you get
| the 22000 from?
| wizeman wrote:
| Your source doesn't mention:
|
| 1. Daily subsistence allowance (~5000 EUR/month)
|
| 2. General expenditure allowance (~4300 EUR/month)
|
| 3. Travel allowances (up to ~2400 EUR/month)
|
| 4. Vice-president allowance (~800 EUR/month)
|
| These are numbers for 2014, when the base salary was
| ~8000 EUR/month.
|
| Since the base salary is now ~9400 EUR/month, you can
| probably add another 20% on top of the numbers I just
| mentioned.
|
| That is, of course, assuming they didn't come up with
| more allowances since then...
|
| Plus they get another 70% of everything they earned as a
| pension.
|
| They also pay a small EU tax instead of a regular income
| tax like the peasants.
|
| And I wouldn't be surprised if the base monthly salary
| was payed 14 or 15 times per year rather than the 12 that
| many people usually assume. At least, that's what happens
| in the European countries I've lived in.
| wizeman wrote:
| And that's not even counting the remaining >21.000 EUR /
| month that they earn.
|
| And we're talking about a European salary! Which they
| don't even pay income taxes on (only a small EU tax). So
| that's practically after-tax money we're talking about.
| [deleted]
| mrfumier wrote:
| Also important to note that there are 705 deputees in the
| European Parliament. One of them was taken into custody, which
| is 0.15%
| greatgib wrote:
| So, we can easily say that there is a good chance that at least
| 7% of the vice presidency of Europe is corrupt...
| yrgulation wrote:
| dekken_ wrote:
| It would be nice if they had to justify their existence much
| like those in academia.
| bionade24 wrote:
| This is a just title. German parliament also has multiple
| "Bundestagsvizepradsidenten", theoretically one parliament
| vice president for each faction.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| It's not just a title. The committee has to decide on
| agenda and other aspects in some consensus reflecting the
| parliament, ensuring that minorities are heard at that
| level. Where the committee doesn't find agreement on
| procedure they got to make a vote by full parliament, which
| distracts from actual work.
|
| Regarding Germany, which I know better than EU: Also mind
| that the parliament is self-governing and the vice
| presidents deal with a ton of adminsitrative tasks. From
| parliament police (Bundestagspolizei) to building
| construction and maintenance and employment of Parliament
| staff. Not forgetting representative tasks, like visiting
| opening sessions of parliaments in other countries etc. and
| then the actual work in leading the debates and on the side
| also policy work. It's serious work.
| dekken_ wrote:
| It's a general comment about governments and bureaucracy.
| saghm wrote:
| Is it? I think it's far more common for private companies
| to have a large number of people titled "Vice President"
| than governments. As far as governments go, the EU
| Parliament seems like a bit of an outlier here.
| dekken_ wrote:
| One pays taxes, the other is paid by taxes. I'm not
| disagreeing with your statement, I just think they're
| currently/contextually dissimilar.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > One pays taxes, the other is paid by taxes.
|
| Well, sometimes.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-20/amazon
| -eu...
|
| "Amazon.com Inc.'s main European retail business reported
| 1.16 billion euros ($1.26 billion) of losses in 2021,
| which allowed the company to pay no income tax and
| receive 1 billion euros in tax credits, corporate filings
| seen by Bloomberg show."
| dekken_ wrote:
| Maybe so, but individuals who are salaried, will pay
| taxes.
| trasz2 wrote:
| Individuals are just company's resource, like hardware,
| or IP. They are not the company itself.
| dekken_ wrote:
| Not exactly relevant. However, a company does not exist
| without people.
| trasz2 wrote:
| It doesn't exist without other resources either. What I'm
| trying to say is, "companies are people" is not true -
| decisions made by companies are not the decisions it's
| employees would normally make if they were not selected -
| or forced by circumstances - to be aligned with company
| goals instead of human goals.
| dekken_ wrote:
| > "companies are people" is not true
|
| `Citizens United` was a mistake yes.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That'll include parliamentary VPs.
| dekken_ wrote:
| Yes, but they are also paid by taxes, and they hardly are
| going to pay the entirety of their salary in taxes.
| arrrg wrote:
| General comments tend to paint the world in a
| stereotypical too broad way that doesn't reflect reality.
| They are often misleading and wrong.
|
| Clarifying the reason for something is the antidote to
| that. And you don't get to weasel out of that by saying
| you were making a more general point with your specific
| statement.
|
| In this case: presidents in typical European parliaments
| are responsible for parliamentary proceedings. Who speaks
| when, what the rules of the debate are, how to resolve
| conflicts, etc. Mostly boring stuff, but stuff that is
| vitally important for functioning parliaments. They also
| actually chair the debate, so they are the ones who do
| the timekeeping and remind MEPs of that and they are the
| ones handing out sanctions if, I don't know, someone
| makes antisemitic remarks about another MEP or something.
|
| Since they set the rules for debate it is also typical
| that all political factions are in some way represented
| since this is a function where everyone should be
| represented. Bonus: since they chair the actual debates
| one person can't shoulder that.
|
| So nothing to do with bureaucracy and everything to do
| with basic democratic principles.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| blibble wrote:
| the european parliament exists for the sole purpose of making
| the EU appear to be democratic
|
| whereas in reality it's the only parliament in the world that
| can't legislate
| millhouse_ams wrote:
| This is not true
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_legislative_
| p...
| blibble wrote:
| if you actually read your own page you'll see what I
| wrote was correct
|
| > the European Commission retains the sole power of
| legislative initiative.
|
| personally I used to be pro-EU
|
| then I made the mistake of digging into how it actually
| works
| drooopy wrote:
| A) The EU is democratic, and B) your second point is also
| factually incorrect. Good try, though, I guess.
| Markoff wrote:
| blumomo wrote:
| Not yet! And not as long as the masses aren't yet coming to
| understand this.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| She is one of the people behind the Cyber Resilience Act,
| recently discussed here: https://blog.nlnetlabs.nl/open-source-
| software-vs-the-cyber-....
| oriettaxx wrote:
| no news about this in Al Jazeera
|
| https://www.aljazeera.com/search/Eva%20Kaili
| elkos wrote:
| Eva Kaili, the MEP that got taken into custody, has several times
| talked about the transformative role of Blockchain, AI and
| FinTech.
|
| As a person that is a bit cynical with overpromises around such
| technologies I can't help wonder how much of her support on such
| tech was sincere.
| stavros wrote:
| _Sees article_
|
| "Please let it not be a Greek please let it not be a Greek"
|
| _clicks_
|
| _sigh_
| NKosmatos wrote:
| The majority of our politicians (from all political parties)
| are corrupt and are exploiting the loopholes of the system.
| Isn't this what the majority of the people are also doing?
| There is a small percentage who are honest/decent/just but not
| enough critical mass to trigger a change.
|
| Coming back to topic, she was/is involved with
| blockchain/cryptos EU legislation as well, and there were some
| "talks" about how she benefited from her participation.
| andix wrote:
| Just to give it some context, there are 14 VPs to the European
| parliament. Only the president and the 1st VP play a significant
| role. She was neither.
| boycottqatar wrote:
| Jesus killing journalists to propagating anti semitic content
| through Al Jazeera to funding terrorist, is there any level to
| which Qatar won't stoop?
|
| [ As per European Parliament According to reliable intelligence
| sources, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are the main funders of Islamic
| State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The Governments of Germany and
| the USA have also accused the two countries of financing and
| supporting ISIS.](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P
| -8-2014-00744...)
|
| It has been even brought before the US Congress as well how Qatar
| is an active sponsor of terrorism ( something which Al Jazeera
| won't highlight)
|
| [According to official US Committee on Foreign Affairs, Qatar has
| been known to be a permissive environment for terror financing,
| reportedly funding U.S. designated foreign terrorist
| organizations, such as Hamas, Al qaeda and ISIS, as well as
| several extremist groups operating in Syria. At least one high-
| ranking Qatari official provided support to the mastermind of the
| 9/11. Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, also made Doha his
| headquarters for years while the Qatari's--with the Qatari's
| Government support and even the Muslim Brotherhood has received
| significant support from Qatar. Of course, not all of this is
| supported by the government in Doha. Many individuals and
| charities in Qatar have been known to raise large sums of money
| for al-Qaeda, the Nusra front, Hamas, and even ISIS.](https://www
| .govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-115hhrg26427/html/C...)
| SaintSeiya wrote:
| epilys wrote:
| The political party is calling itself socialist, but it's
| fiscally conservative, supports the free market and Keynesian
| economics. It's considered center in Greece.
| greggarious wrote:
| So they're socialist like North Korea is democratic? Got it.
| epilys wrote:
| The name is meaningless but the similarity ends there.
|
| Basically, left politics were heavily suppressed after
| WWII. The then-famous Greek Resistance was left-wing self-
| organized militia. After WWII ended though, the British
| armed right wing organizations including former Nazi
| collaborators in order to wipe out opposition to British
| interests[0]. Eventually a civil war happened in 1946[1].
| Being left-wing was criminalized in 1950, as part of the
| Cold War and western influence. Eventually the CIA backed a
| military coup[2] that lasted until 1976.
|
| This is just a summary, but you can see why "socialism" has
| a different meaning in Greece. It simply meant progressive
| values but not left wing.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekemvriana
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Civil_War
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regime_of_the_Colonels#A
| merica...
| greggarious wrote:
| >Basically, left politics were heavily suppressed after
| WWII.
|
| I know.
| drexlspivey wrote:
| The party is considered center-left in Greece but inside the
| US political spectrum it would be far-left (similar positions
| to Bernie Sanders)
| greggarious wrote:
| In my experience it's the right who does these things and the
| left who drives themselves to an early grave trying to do the
| right thing.
|
| (I'm a card carrying democratic socialist after my experiences
| on K Street and in the EU in my capacity as a member of so
| called civil society.)
| akie wrote:
| I really dislike the whole cynical "all politicians are thieves"
| vibe going on in here. Yes, this politician was probably for
| sale, she took money from dubious sources, AND SHE WAS ARRESTED.
| I think that's fantastic, because it shows that even the powerful
| can be held to account. This is most certainly not the case
| everywhere.
| xwolfi wrote:
| Now I agree with you, but what about all the arrests of
| politicians in China ... some are revenge by other corrupts,
| some are truly about justice... There are places were all is
| corrupt, and it can happen to your country too :)
| duxup wrote:
| Separation of powers, strong institutions and an independent
| judiciary is very important.
|
| We've seen that in the US where judges appointed by a
| politician will/can rule against them in court cases.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _We've seen that in the US where judges appointed by a
| politician will /can rule against them in court cases._
|
| Yes. The cases where they have more to gain for their
| career and status by not aligning with the politician, or
| where the politician is seen as dead weight they cannot
| benefit from anymore...
| duxup wrote:
| I don't see any evidence of that.
|
| Plenty of judges rule unpopular rulings without any
| consequences based on the law (as it should be).
| coldtea wrote:
| Popular to the masses and popular to their particular
| target demographics and/or patrons are a totally
| different matter altogether...
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| Separation of powers sounds like a joke when all modern
| liberal democracies are run by parties, not individual
| persons. It's, for example, common for senators to become
| presidents in the US. Yeah, a judge can rule against a
| politician that appointed them, but (1) did they rule
| against their party? (2) is it such a high bar that shows
| an expected level of separation of powers?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > It's, for example, common for senators to become
| presidents in the US.
|
| Yes, it helps to know the system and the people in it.
| You'll find that businesses, charities, and pretty much
| any other organization pick CEOs in a similar fashion.
| lzaaz wrote:
| routerl wrote:
| I get your point, and I sympathize.
|
| But it is absolutely not cynical to assume that for each
| criminal person (forget politicians) who gets caught and
| charged, there are almost certainly more who didn't get caught
| or didn't get charged.
|
| It is not cynical to assume that law enforcement has a less
| than perfect ability to prosecute criminals; it's just
| realistic.
|
| Rather, it is naive to assume otherwise: What process, in any
| domain, has a 100% success rate?
|
| Note: I'm not taking the "all politicians are corrupt"
| position, just "it is almost certainly true that corrupt
| politicians are often able to get away with their corruption".
| So, maybe we're not actually talking about the same thing.
|
| Corrupt politicians, it seems, are like cockroaches: if you've
| confirmed the existence of _one_ , then there are certainly
| _several_ whose presence is as yet unconfirmed.
| solarkraft wrote:
| Yes, but the trick is not not looking. This is a lot better
| than the corruption being widely known and nothing being done
| against it (can you guess which country I'm thinking of?).
|
| This sends the signal that in Europe, corruption _can_ come
| back to hurt you.
| routerl wrote:
| > This sends the signal that in Europe, corruption can come
| back to hurt you.
|
| Nah, it just creates an in-group ("we know that corrupt
| politicians can get away with it"), and an out-group
| ("let's avoid corruption, since we'll get caught").
|
| > the trick is not not looking
|
| Unintentional double negative there, I think.
| cespare wrote:
| Seems intentional. "The trick is not [ignoring the bad
| thing]".
| routerl wrote:
| I considered that, but it doesn't cohere with "This is a
| lot better than the corruption being widely known". That
| is, the poster I was replying to seemed to be advocating
| "don't investigate, or else corruption will be widely
| known, even though nothing is done against it".
|
| Anyway, regardless of their intended meaning, my point
| about in- and out-groups stands.
| hedora wrote:
| Yeah, but how many other corrupt politicians were not arrested,
| and why was she singled out?
|
| If this were the US, and she were Republican, she'd be from a
| southern state that was involved in a non-cis sex scandal. The
| Republican replacing her would be openly guilty of much worse
| things than that.
|
| Presumably the "unidentified gulf state" part is some coded
| racist allegation? Aren't there a lot of nationalist nutjobs in
| Greece these days?
|
| (Not defending her; I just wouldn't be surprised because she
| was removed for not being dirty enough.)
| conradfr wrote:
| She was not singled out, they arrested 11 people and maybe
| more to come.
|
| I get your point, but because some crooks are free doesn't
| mean they should all be free.
|
| It's the same as "why bother with Ukraine when we turn a
| blind eye on Yemen".
| hedora wrote:
| If they are actually cleaning house, great. However, most
| leadership purges are spearheaded by people even worse than
| the ones ousted. Perhaps Greece is far less corrupt than
| most other countries.
|
| My take on it is more like "why bother with the LAPD when
| Rodney King was driving drunk?"
|
| Time will tell, but I'm not holding my breath.
| notright6 wrote:
| BogdanPetre wrote:
| tip of the iceberg...
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| How is being arrested sufficient to say she is held to account?
| She needs to be sentenced to a fair punishment first. And then
| she needs to serve the complete sentence and return all ill-
| gotten gains.
| iso1631 wrote:
| First she needs to be found guilty in a court of law, then
| the needs to be sentenced.
|
| Or is that innocent until _proven_ guilty not a thing any
| more?
| Markoff wrote:
| arrested and jailed/convicted are two very different things
|
| let me guess this will end up with lengthy process and in the
| end she won't serve any time
|
| plus just because other politicians let her get arrested
| doesn't mean they are not corrupted too, it can just mean they
| wanted to get rid off competition (see Xi Jin Ping corruption
| fight theatre play)
| noncoml wrote:
| Tell me you don't live in a corrupted country without telling
| me you don't live in a corrupted country.
|
| Let me guess Scandinavian?
|
| You argument is similar to the US argument, not all police is
| bad.
|
| Technically it's true, but when the percentage of politicians
| that are corrupted is high enough, for all practical purposes
| you can consider them all corrupted when looking for a solution
| to the problem.
| donclark wrote:
| Is there a percentage ranking of the possibility of a -or- most
| politicians being corrupt? Odds are? Asking for a friend that is
| thinking of going into politics.
| intunderflow wrote:
| The only way to detain someone with parliamentary immunity is if
| they are caught in the act, so they must have caught her with the
| 600k.
| spapas82 wrote:
| She had the money hidden in her house. Her father was caught
| with a suitcase full of money.
| tremon wrote:
| Parliamentary immunity for MEPs does not extend to their
| privates lives. MEPs are only immune from prosecution for
| public statements they make (like, for example, "Qatar has a
| great human rights track record. It's the best, the greatest"),
| not for anything else they do.
| pfoof wrote:
| Well in poland immunity also prevents politicians from
| getting speeding tickets as long as they are doing something
| work related (at least officially)
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| It depends on the definition of "parliamentary immunity" in
| their home country, though. In some EU countries, it is
| indeed practically immune unless "caught in the act" (e.g.
| inviolability in France).
| arlort wrote:
| I am not sure she had parliamentary immunity.
|
| It seems like that only applies during sessions of the EP,
| which isn't in session right now.
|
| She would probably be able to claim immunity to attend the
| session next week, but as the first thing will probably be to
| lift her immunity I doubt she'll bother
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Having 600K isn't in itself an "act". And they must have some
| reason for mentioning a "Gulf state". I wonder if they've had
| her and the others under surveillance, and nabbed her while
| brown envelopes were passing back and forth.
| epilys wrote:
| For context, this person was part of PASOK[0], one of the two
| political parties that created the Greek debt crisis and is rife
| with corruption scandals [1][2][3][4][5]. She was removed from
| the party some days ago.
|
| The other political party is in power today. They both plundered
| the Greek public sector, privatized public owned industries and
| subsequently cooked the numbers to let Greece in the Eurozone
| even with the massive debt they had caused.
|
| Vote abstention is around 40-45% in Greece, and higher among the
| youth.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PASOK
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Papandreou#%22Koskotas...
|
| [2]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akis_Tsochatzopoulos#Corruptio...
|
| [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagarde_list
|
| [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novartis#Corruption
|
| [5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_Greek_bribery_scandal
| gbil wrote:
| I suggest you take a lot here with a grain of salt because
| either of personal opinions or half-reporting data, eg:
|
| - She was removed from the party just yesterday afternoon after
| the publication of the topic
|
| - Vote abstention is around 40-45% out of ~9,98m registered to
| vote (on 2019 elections) on a country of 10,4m people (census
| 2021) !!!!!! Never understood how this is even possible
|
| - The specific person entered politics after a lot of the
| listed topics took place and her background was not a political
| one anyhow
|
| EDIT: format
| bpfrh wrote:
| The vote abstention should be right, I searched on the greek
| voting system and I don't see any requirement besides[1]:
|
| * having the greek citizenship
|
| * being older than 17
|
| * Not being dissalowed by the court to vote
|
| All citizens get automatically added to the "registered vote"
| after they turn 17.
|
| E.g. A greek citizen is always a registered voter even if he
| doesn't go and vote.
|
| If we take the 2019 numbers we have:
|
| 9961718 registered voters
|
| 4192215 voters who didn't fill out the forms (I assume non
| voters are counted this way)
|
| (4192215x100)/9961718 ~=42% Are non voters
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Greece
|
| [2]https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parlamentswahl_in_Griechenla
| nd...
|
| Edit: formatting, add a note about what the 42% means
| gbil wrote:
| Your math is fine starting from the 9,9m number but you
| didn't take into account what I wrote, which is that the
| total population of greece is 10,4 millions. Registered
| voters are those >=17 years old so only 500k are <17 which
| of course is not valid
|
| EDIT: adding more data, official numbers state ~1,5m of age
| 0-14. Let's say 200k more in the 15-16 range, that is ~1,7m
| 10,4-1,7 = 8,7m >=17 years old. Population of Greece
| dropped by about 400k between the previous and current
| census (2011-2021) while the registered voters number from
| 2009 elections hasn't changed. I'm afraid that 1,7m gap is
| not justified at all, we locals have long heard of how bad
| the registered voters records are, still including a lot of
| dead people etc.
|
| To not lose track, this thread is just to justify why the
| numbers in the OP are to be taken with a grain of salt
| [deleted]
| layer8 wrote:
| Maybe this is explained by many Greeks living abroad but
| still being eligible and registered voters?
| phs318u wrote:
| As the son of Greeks living abroad it's exactly this.
| greggarious wrote:
| >her background was not a political one anyhow
|
| I don't understand what you're trying to articulate.
|
| What makes one's background "political"? Are you saying
| politics should be hereditary?
|
| Or jus for folks privileged to attend certain schools, work
| certain places?
| gbil wrote:
| The OP presents a rotten political environment through
| which by definition anyone part of that environment, comes
| out also rotten, essentially attributing her actions to
| that political environment. I just say that this specific
| person was not 100% part of the environment, at least
| during the time periods presented in the OP's comment.
| thdespou wrote:
| I'm Greek but I'm living abroad. Never bothered changing my
| status back in Greece. They would count me as absent from
| every public voting.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| Probably worth adding that a hefty number of scandals involving
| corrupt Greek politicians had huge German companies involved
| (Siemens, HDW, Rheinmetall..)
|
| Plus Germany benefited greatly from the introduction of import
| based economies in the Eurozone, and the financial crisis.
|
| It is no wonder they like corrupt politicians in power.
| looping__lui wrote:
| Or maybe you are mixing up cause and effect: Greek
| politicians demanded hefty bribes to do business in the first
| place.
|
| Yes, Germany is a real winner in bailing out Greek and all
| the southern European economies than cannot pay their bills.
| You are aware that exporting stuff to countries that take a
| loan and don't pay it back is like not exactly "beneficial".
|
| Greek should never have been in the EU in the first place.
| They lied about their financial situation and deliberately
| stole money from their European neighbors.
| looping__lui wrote:
| I meant: should not have been part of Euro. EU membership
| makes total sense.
| mike_hearn wrote:
| EU membership requires adoption of the Euro, at least
| theoretically - some countries officially state they will
| adopt it but somehow never get around to it, and
| excepting states that were grandfathered in as special
| exceptions.
| looping__lui wrote:
| I do not believe a shared currency for countries with
| such vastly different economical situations and dynamics
| makes sense. A joint economic union - absolutely. But a
| shared currency is probably an ideologically motivated
| step; not a rational or smart step...
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I think you should just take a more American view of the
| situation.
|
| Greece is like the poor US southern states. The richer
| states fund them (no loans, just give them money, never get
| it back), because "we're all Americans". You could call it
| stealing, or you could call it the way things are.
|
| It's a good thing for Europe to have Greece within the EU
| (and probably even within the eurozone). Asking them to be
| financially self-sufficient might be as silly as asking the
| same thing of Alabama or Mississippi ...
| looping__lui wrote:
| They can be in the EU. They can screw up their budgets.
| But there is no need for them to be bound to the Euro.
| Plenty of countries that are part of the EU but don't
| have the Euro. I'm happy to do business with them and I'm
| happy to let them have their way. But I won't tie the
| stability of my savings and my currency to their
| falsified financial statements and unsustainable economic
| model... :-)
|
| Never understood why we wanted them in the Euro. They
| should have their own Greek currency they can devalue
| every couple of years by 50% or so to stay competitive
| phs318u wrote:
| Which is exactly what they used to do regularly pre-Euro.
| You seem to believe the German banks were hoodwinked into
| lending to the Greek government but that's just not
| supported by the well known economic history of the
| country. The real reason they were willing to lend,
| ignoring the history (since independence, Greece had
| failed to repay international debts and debased its
| currency numerous times), is that the banks knew that the
| Euro governments would cover the losses on the basis that
| they couldn't afford for the EU to fail.
|
| And they were right.
| looping__lui wrote:
| They lied about their finances when asking for money. I
| know that "American banks" are also often viewed as evil
| for selling crap (knowingly) mortgage backed securities
| to German banks and we often tend to just go easy by
| stating "banks are evil" and that's where the story end.
| However: it was American households that lived beyond
| their means for decades and lived in houses they could
| not afford and lied on (unverified) loan applications;
| the US government mandated more homeowners, banks
| provided the means and took a cut. So, more
| differentiated and in those "evil bank discussions" we
| tend to forget it was often a significant number of "poor
| ordinary citizens" living well beyond their means (e.g.,
| not paying adequate taxes in Greek, having fatter
| pensions than others in Europe etc.)
| phs318u wrote:
| You're expecting ordinary citizens to be aware of their
| actions on the broader economy when their own governments
| are lying to them. Leaving aside the fact that most
| people have neither the knowledge nor the power to live
| other than as their system allows them to, why then
| doesn't your logic apply to Germans? Why shouldn't we
| blame them for continually voting in governments that
| kept bailing out irresponsible German banks? Stop looking
| for scapegoats. It takes two to tango.
| looping__lui wrote:
| I think it is a cultural thing to be honest. Germans are
| obsessed with their tax filings, they love to do them to
| the euro etc. Walk into a German restaurant or any shop
| and observe tax receipts.
|
| Then look around in Greek or Italy.
|
| Germans fundamentally believe taxes are due and should be
| paid and the government can "mostly be trusted".
|
| Greek seem to be more hesitant about that...
|
| Greek voted their government into place. Hence they are
| responsible for the actions.
|
| I'm not looking for a scapegoat. Just stating what it is:
| if you aren't trustworthy, stay out of a currency and
| system requiring trustworthy partners.
| phs318u wrote:
| The Greeks are hesitant about taxes because they know
| from experience that their governments (of any flavour)
| have invariably been historically corrupt. The Germans
| experience (post-war at least) was not that. I doubt very
| much if the Germans of the Weimar republic were too
| fussed with their taxes.
|
| To your last point, if I'm not trustworthy, don't let me
| in. Are you familiar with the story of the scorpion and
| the frog?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog
| m000 wrote:
| > Greek politicians demanded hefty bribes
|
| How come that it was usually a German company willing to
| pay the "hefty" bribe? Maybe because "until 1999 in
| Germany, bribes were a tax-deductible business expense, and
| there were no penalties for bribing foreign officials"? [1]
|
| Cause and effect.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens#2005_and_continui
| ng:_w...
| looping__lui wrote:
| So Greek became corrupt and went bankrupt because bribes
| were tax-deductible in Germany until the 90s?
|
| How far back should we turn the wheels of time?
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals
|
| And what does that have to do with the Greek government
| falsifying their statements to join the EU and take on
| debt?
| https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/23/world/europe/greece-
| admit...
|
| Probably zeeee Germans bribed zeee Greek to force them
| join zeee EU.
|
| Greek f**d up, lied, covered it up, lied more, covered up
| more and then had to face the consequences.
| phs318u wrote:
| You and I are neighbours. I ask to borrow your chainsaw.
| You lend it. Next month you come knocking wanting it
| back. I point to the corner where it lays broken and
| shrug.
|
| Some time later I ask to borrow your lawn mower. You give
| it. When you ask for it back I regretfully explain that I
| had to hock it to pay off my bookie.
|
| Later still, I ask to borrow your Mercedes. You look at
| my front yard where a beat up old Toyota is sitting on
| blocks. I swear on my mother's grave that I'll look after
| your car and treat it just like my own. You then hand
| over the keys.
|
| There is (or should be) a moral hazard attached to
| lending irresponsibly. It was an open secret back then
| that the books were cooked to let Greece in. Certainly
| nothing in the history of the modern Greek state gave any
| confidence it would be different. Yet you would have us
| believe that Deutche Bank [0] were utterly naive and
| blind to history. That they were poor, unsuspecting,
| honest fools who didn't have a clue what they were
| getting into.
|
| [0]. https://www.dw.com/en/deutsche-banks-5-biggest-
| scandals/a-46...
| looping__lui wrote:
| Greeks lied about their finances and took loans they
| couldn't pay back. I don't see how they are the victim in
| this discussion. Deutsche Bank or anybody else giving
| money to Greek is stupid imho. Lacking "street smart" for
| sure. Still I paid for this bullshit w/ my taxes and
| could t do anything about it.
|
| Do I dig this entire "oh poor Greek got screwed by
| Germany and Greek is the victim" nonsense? No.
|
| Greek lies and screws over their neighbors and then
| threatens to tank the entire EU / Euro over their
| bankruptcy: not a victim. Not to be trusted.
|
| Thats what you imply with your post: don't trust the
| Greek, they lied in the past, they will lie in the
| future. No sympathy from my end.
| phs318u wrote:
| Friend, firstly please don't conflate Greeks with Greek
| governments. Secondly, yes Greek governments lied with
| some great help from Goldman Sachs. I promise you the
| Greek people found that all prices rose when the Euro was
| introduced. Finally, if German banks did the wrong thing,
| then perhaps your beef should be with them and with the
| German government that chose to bail them out and not let
| them fail. Because the "Greek bailouts" were indeed
| bailouts of the (mostly) German banks. As I said in
| another post, DB gambled, confident they would be bailed
| out - there was no moral hazard attached to their
| actions. They were right.
| arisAlexis wrote:
| In a democracy, 60 years of electing corrupt politicians
| mean Greeks or the Greek society or whatever you want to
| put it are guilty too along with all their corrupt
| governments. It runs deep in the society. I am Greek.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| You know that all the money sent to the Greeks were only
| used to bail out European banks, right ? And that they
| framed it that way because they had already bailed out said
| banks ?
|
| Anyway, of course I don't know exactly what's going on. I'm
| just a rando with no skin in the game
| looping__lui wrote:
| I pay my taxes. My taxes were used to pay for excessive
| irresponsible spend if a foreign country (Greek
| government) that lied about its finances to its partners.
| makomk wrote:
| In particular, the money was used to bail out a bunch of
| German banks, who as far as I can understand it ended up
| with all that debt because Germany was running a trade
| surplus with Greece directly enabled by the structure of
| the Eurozone without any corresponding fiscal transfers
| that would balance it out, and that in turm directly
| benefitted Germany as well.
| looping__lui wrote:
| Maybe Greek should have paid taxes after all:
| https://www.businessinsider.com/corruption-in-greese-
| hamperi...
|
| But the funny thing is: Greek themselves find their
| country too corrupt and bloated that they aren't willing
| to pay for it with THEIR OWN money...
|
| Much of Greeks debt problem would not have existed had
| the Greek citizens paid taxes like the rest of Europe.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Same with Romania and Eastern Europe in general. Western EU
| countries criticize them immensely for corruption in the
| public eye, yet their governments, banks and major
| corporations profit immensely from the business deals
| corruption there enables them to do, and so they have a
| vested interest to keep just enough corruption there so they
| can keep profiteering, while maintaining enough rule of law
| so that their investments there are safe and ensures the free
| flow of profits back home.
| jq-r wrote:
| You're exactly right. In Croatia everything of any value is
| owned or being sold to German companies and they pretty
| much own the place (or at least what worth anyway). All of
| this is facilitated by the same government for the last 30
| years or so. The same government has been completely and
| obviously corrupted to the core, but never, even much of a
| peep criticised by the EU.They are all friends there. As
| long as the public is not openly rioting, EU likes this
| arrangement.
| nayroclade wrote:
| This is boilerplate conspiratorial nonsense. West European
| countries would benefit far more from East European
| countries being free from the economic drag imposed by
| endemic corruption. The EU internal market overall would be
| much richer and stronger, and those banks and corporations
| would have a better quality consumer and labor base. Banks
| and corporations can make plenty of money in high-trust
| societies just as in low-trust ones, and they get more
| regulatory certainty as well.
| JetSpiegel wrote:
| Most corruption cases benefit the German companies, so
| no, they would not benefit more, otherwise they would
| just lobby their local governments for fiscal transfer to
| the poorer countries. The opposite happens, the German
| constitutional court can veto foreign budgets if they
| don't pay the Danegeld (i.e. not wasting all european
| funds buying goods and services from Germany).
|
| The litmus test is this: can a EU country use european
| funds to create a new carmaker to compete with central
| european carmakers? Hell no. But you can spend all
| european funds buying cars from Germany, that's never
| wasteful.
|
| The EU has no policy to enrich the entire union, only the
| central countries. The EU funds are basically a
| workaround for direct transfers of money from the German
| government to German companies, via foreign countries.
|
| I'm not from a Eastern European country, but I do live in
| a poor Eastern European economy, it's the same dynamic.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> This is boilerplate conspiratorial nonsense_
|
| It's not though. EU wide corruption scandals prove this.
|
| Western EU companies routinely pay bribes to dump
| plastics and toxic waste in Romanian landfills under the
| disguise of "recyclable material". This way those private
| companies save a few bucks to stay competitive, and their
| countries keep getting to call themselves "green" by
| exporting their environmental damage across the border.
|
| IKEA, plus Austrian and German wood companies routinely
| paid bribes in the Romanian timber industry to be able to
| perform mass deforestation.
|
| Austrian companies, like STR*BAG, paid bribes to Romanian
| politicians to get preferential juicy building contracts,
| sometimes using EU funds, for highways that never get
| completed due to various technicalities that got
| intentionally omitted from the contract so that the
| building company can just bail out from the deal without
| having built anything while getting paid in full.
| Basically, the EU taxpayer is paying for a western EU
| company to make bank in the east, all through EU funds
| funneled trough Romania, to build roads that never get
| built.
|
| All this high level corruption benefits major western EU
| companies, and corrupt eastern EU politicians a lot.
| Western EU politicians also benefit from this as the
| major companies in their countries lobby for them to keep
| this corrupt system going so they can keep making bank.
|
| The EU is a great thing, but it's also ripe with
| corruption that's costing the taxpayers tens of billions.
| t0bia_s wrote:
| Yes, in Czechia we have same corrupted politics and
| business. Since summer 2021 prices goes up around 30% on
| food, 50% for energy. Most ridiculous is that our power
| plants make enough energy for entire country and 15% are
| sold abroad, but... All energy is auctioned on the Leipzig
| Stock Exchange for 600% higher price than it is actually
| made (1 kWh cost around 1 CZK to made, it's sold for 6-7
| CZK and rising. Now our gonverment need to cap prices from
| our taxes so state budget has this year recorded deficit
| since 70's around 350 bilion CZK.
|
| Trust in gonverment is very low, voter turnout was around
| 48% in regional elections.
|
| Our politicians blame war in Ukraine, it's ridiculous.
| tasuki wrote:
| I'm Czech, though somewhat disconnected from local
| situation/politics.
|
| > Most ridiculous is that our power plants make enough
| energy for entire country and 15% are sold abroad, but...
| All energy is auctioned on the Leipzig Stock Exchange for
| 600% higher price than it is actually made (1 kWh cost
| around 1 CZK to made, it's sold for 6-7 CZK and rising.
|
| Why is that ridiculous? We make something cheap, and sell
| it abroad for profit. Isn't it a good thing we're
| exporting? (I'd get it if your argument was against the
| _coal_ power plants, I don 't get why selling abroad for
| a profit is bad in general.)
| t0bia_s wrote:
| When you import it back with that price, I find it
| immoral. Who decide to sell it back to country wher it
| came from with 6 time higher price?
|
| It's called "lichva". Germans have cheaper prices and
| also 3 times more average income.
|
| Also what's the point to make own people suffer and be
| poor by this business? It's absolutely ridiculous.
| [deleted]
| greatgib wrote:
| To me, it would be fair that she get the punishment that she
| would get if she did commit such a crime in the Qatar. I guess
| something like death penalty for betraying the kingdom dictators.
| Should be ok with her as she was supporting the fact that human
| rights are ok there...
| mabbo wrote:
| How fun. The MEP who loudly announces how great Qatar's labor
| rights are is found with hundreds of thousands of euros in cash,
| allegedly from "a gulf country".
|
| Presuming the allegations are true, all I can think is how basic
| the whole affair is. TV has made me come to expect something more
| complicated and devious.
| thepangolino wrote:
| Anything more devious doesn't make the news. Had she had a
| partner start a startup and fill in all the propriate tax forms
| after recieving millions of Euros you'd at most have heard
| about "possible conflicts of interests", not blatant corruption
| like here.
| greggarious wrote:
| sounds like a great way to spark riots
| Krasnol wrote:
| Other media already report that it indeed might be Qatar:
| https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/europa/kaili-festnahme-kor...
| (German)
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Qatar is the second largest exporter of LNG. They can do what
| they want and it seems like a stupid mistake if they were
| indeed bribing EU politicians in cash...
|
| That being said, earlier this year there was a story here in
| the UK about King Charles once receiving 1 million in cash (in
| a shopping bag!) from the Gulf as 'charity donation'... so
| perhaps EU politicians should setup more charities.
|
| Edit: in fairness, the cash donation to Charles' charity was
| correctly booked and reported in the charity's accounts and so
| nothing much happened when the story broke. But bags of cash do
| tend to raise eyebrows and the conclusion was that it'd be best
| not to accept them in the future...
| bbarnett wrote:
| _But bags of cash do tend to raise eyebrows and the
| conclusion was that it 'd be best not to accept them in the
| future..._
|
| You can raise your eyebrows all you wish, I'll stick with the
| bag of cash, thank you.
| notright6 wrote:
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