The corruption scandal that erupted in the European Parliament at the end of 2022, has not only caused political tensions within the European Union, but also raised questions related to the institution’s future capabilities in handling this kind of situation. Some of the members of the European Parliament and their associates have been accused of accepting large sums of money from a Gulf country, and everything following it ever since has proven to be worthy of our attention.
The legal situation is not simple, as neither the European Union as a whole, nor the European Parliament as an institution has any kind of legal rules applicable to cases like these. Institutional documents, like the European Parliament’s Code of Conduct are important in governing activities of members of the European Parliament, but at the same time this code lacks any enforcement capabilities. Additionally, the EU itself does not have institutions responsible for this task, which stems logically from its current stage of development as more of an international organisation than a state.
As a result of this, the local Belgian authorities have had to conduct investigations related to an alleged crime against the EU or one of its institutions, based on a classical territorial jurisdiction, as the crime was committed in Belgium. As the European Parliament was quick to offer its full cooperation, including lifting the immunity of the MEPs involved, seemingly more serious legal-political complications were avoided. Arrests and charges have been made, including members of the European Parliament, while important EU political actors have rushed to take a public position condemning the events. Member state governments have also taken positions on the scandal, by making statements with opinions formulated based on their political relationship with the European Parliament. The reaction of the Hungarian government was described as“trolling” by Politico, as Viktor Orbán’s government has been the subject of corruption-related criticism for a long time by the European Parliament.
But apart from the politically uncomfortable implications, the operative legal framework seemed to be not too complicated. Still, it has shed light on weaknesses of the EU and its institutions related to situations like this.
These situations unfortunately may not always be that simple. The famous – at least for Hungarians – case of Béla Kovács is such an example. Kovacs is a former member of the European Parliament from the extreme-right wing party Jobbik, who was allegedly cooperating with the Russian intelligence (after this, commonly known as “KGBéla”) in and around 2014. Since this scandal, an important question has been posed, for which the European Union or the member states still have not developed a proper answer: is it possible to “spy” on the European Union or its institutions? And if yes, whose job is it to defend against it? Is it the responsibility of the member states or the EU itself? If our answer is the latter, does it have the needed competence for that and should it develop its own applicable legal framework, including possible punitive measures?
The Hungarian government has delivered its own answer: it has created a crime in its own legal system, under the name “Espionage against the institutions of the European Union” added into section 261/A of the Hungarian Criminal Code at that time without any similar Union-level legal provision and without any demand or request for that from the European Union or any of its institutions. Some time after adopting this crime, when enough time had passed in order to collect the evidence, charges were pressed against MEP Kovács, and later he was found guilty. Since then, he is at large, and according to latest information he resides in Moscow. It is noteworthy to mention that the European Parliament has had no problem lifting his immunity by the request of the Hungarian authorities, which may indicate that it has no problem with the idea of a proceeding on the member state level. (We could add that the whole situation has raised a lot of questions related to the politically motivated nature of the process as the Hungarian government party Fidesz was clearly trying to gain supporters of the Jobbik party at that time. Additionally, the charges also included some irregularities related to EP expenses.)
Regardless of the political elements of the case, the question still stands: can a member state “protect” EU institutions with its own domestic penal legislative measures? What if the EU or any of its institutions does not want this to happen?
Our opinion is that the European Union must build its own legal-institutional capacities if it wants these cases to be taken out of the hands of member states and protect its own identity and integrity. Of course, this idea may meet resistance from member states in the future that will fear losing more elements of their sovereignty, but the point is, that this may not be “their” sovereignty anymore.