The news that Labour MEP Daniel Attard is embroiled in a bribery investigation came as a bolt from the blue, with Attard issuing a statement on Monday 19 May, describing his attendance at a football match in the presence of a Huawei lobbyist.
The matter raised several questions over Attard’s future and the extent of his alleged involvement in the latest scandal to rock EU institutions, but it also led to misleading and often speculative claims about Attard’s alleged wrongdoing, including claims that Attard was facing arrest.
What do we know so far?
Much of what we know comes from Attard’s statement, in which he describes accepting an invitation from his Hungarian parliamentary assistant to attend a football match at the Anderlecht stadium last September.
Attard says that, unbeknownst to him, the invitation had actually originated from a Huawei lobbyist currently under investigation.
The Chinese tech giant has long been suspected of using lobbyists to illegally curry favour with MEPs, including by giving them gifts such as football tickets at the company-owned box at Anderlecht’s Lotto Park stadium.
It later emerged that investigators had bugged the stadium box, potentially obtaining recordings of several MEPs who attended matches on Huawei’s invitation. This may include Attard, who welcomed the news, saying the recordings would exonerate him.
However, in the meantime, the Belgian police requested that Attard’s immunity, together with that of another four MEPs, be lifted.
Attard himself has also written to European Parliament president Roberta Metsola asking for his immunity to be lifted, vowing to clear his name.
Who else are investigators looking into?
Attard is not the only MEP who has come under the investigators’ spotlight.
On Tuesday 20 May, Politico reported that the Belgian police have asked for the immunity of five MEPs to be lifted, three of them from the European People’s Party (EPP) and one from Renew, aside from Attard, who sits with the S&D group.
At the time, the names of these MEPs was yet to be revealed, although some, like Attard, had chosen to go public with the news.
One such MEP is Italian EPP member Salvatore De Meo, who told Euractiv that his involvement stems from a social meeting held outside the European Parliament. Another is Bulgarian Renew MEP Nikola Minchev who, like Attard, is being investigated after he attended an Anderlecht football match, sitting in the Huawei company box.
It later emerged that police had also requested that the immunity of MEPs Fulvio Martusciello and Giusi Princi be waived, although the request for the latter was dropped shortly afterwards.
What is parliamentary immunity?
Each MEP enjoys parliamentary immunity, which grants them a degree of protection from investigation.
In practice, immunity makes it difficult for the authorities to investigate an MEP or their staff, since it prohibits them from accessing email records, phone logs and other information that investigators typically need when building a case.
When there is a suspicion of wrongdoing, the authorities submit a formal request to the European Parliament, asking for immunity to be lifted in order for them to carry out their investigation. This is what has happened in Attard’s case.
How is immunity lifted?
Lifting an MEP’s immunity is not always a quick process.
First, the EP president, Metsola, must announce the request during a plenary session. This is expected to take place at the opening of today’s plenary session.
The request is then sent to the Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI), which investigates the request and summons the MEP in question to give their version of events.
Finally, the committee recommends whether immunity should be lifted or not, with parliamentarians eventually voting on the matter.
Sources close to the parliament told Times of Malta that this could be a lengthy affair, sometimes taking several months, although there have been cases in which it has been fast-tracked.
During the Qatargate scandal, for instance, proceedings were speeded up, with several parliamentarians having their immunity lifted within a month of investigators filing their request.
Sources say that something similar is likely to happen in Attard’s case, given that he has himself asked for his immunity to be lifted.
Is Attard likely to be charged with any wrongdoing?
Nobody knows at this stage and sources say it is too early to tell.
Lifting an MEP’s immunity does not automatically mean they will be facing charges, although it is a clear sign that investigators feel the need to dig further.
Sources say that investigators could also ask for immunity to be lifted if somebody close to an MEP, rather than the MEP themselves, is their main target.
Minchev who, like Attard, has been hit with a request for his immunity to be lifted, has pointed to his links to a former aide who is currently under investigation, as the reason behind the request.
Even if this were to be the case and Attard is a fringe figure in the investigation, his immunity may still need to be lifted for investigators to access communication records and documentation.
What these charges could potentialLaly be remains unclear at this stage.
Politico has reported that eight people, none of them MEPs, have so far been charged in relation to the scandal, facing charges of corruption, money laundering and forming part of a criminal organisation.
One other person, a parliamentary assistant to Italian EPP MEP Fulvio Martusciello, was also charged, but the Italian courts have so far refused to hand her over to the Belgian authorities.
