Sign In, Sod Off... and Slap!

SISO? What could this mysterious four-letter acronym stand for? A complex and bureaucratic way in which MEPs claim expenses back from the European Parliament? Hardly. SISO stands for 'Sign in and Sod Off'.

MEPs receive various forms of allowances (and some expenses), one of which is the daily allowance, intended to cover expenditure on food and accommodation for every day that they are physically present in the European Parliament, be it in Brussels or Strasbourg.

The idea, of course, is that they do work. However 'SISO' involves MEPs rocking up at the EP - signing in - a pre-condition of claiming the €300 of daily allowance - before promptly sodding off without doing any actual work. That's not exactly how the daily allowance was intended to be used.

There have been cases of this practice being captured on film in the past, and while it always makes for hilarious viewing, it remains a PR disaster for a body already struggling with legitimacy.

We hadn't heard about any cases of SISO for some time, so we thought the practice might have stopped. Alas, that might not be the case. At his own peril (as he soon came to find) GeenStijl reporter @TomStaal, decided to take a trip to European Parliament to see for himself. But Staal got a lot more than he bargained for...

The video below shows Staal confronting two MEPs, Czech MEP Miroslav Ransdorf (from the EP's far left GUE group) and  Italian MEP Raffaele Baldassarre (of the European People's Party) after the two have allegedly signed in and left straight away.

Now, we must stress that we haven't seen the whole chain of events and since the MEPs in question aren't exactly keen to talk, we don't know their side of the story either. So we're NOT saying they are necessarily guilty of signing in and sodding off - the jury is still out on that.

But, regardless, the MEPs' reactions aren't exactly dignified. 

shortened version / credit to Geenstijl reporter Tom Staal

To clarify for those who are unfamiliar with Italian hand gesturing, two gestures feature in the video:

1. ‘Lei chi è? Cosa vuole?’ (Who are you? What do you want?): Fingers and thumb come together with hand shaken up and down repeatedly – the arm can also move and the speed varies depending on how angry you are.
   
   
2. ‘Calma, calma’ (Calm down, dear): Move your hand (or both of them) as you were pushing something invisible down, with the palm(s) directed towards your interlocutor. This is the gesture actually made by the other Italian guy - the one in the dark suit - not the MEP himself. 

There should be no doubt that when push comes to shove, MEPs aren't afraid to throw their weight around - literally. So is this a case of unfair and overly aggressive investigative journalism, or a slap on the face of European taxpayers? You decide.

If it's the former, then it's ironic that Baldassarre's most recent activity in the EP is listed as "decriminalising defamation"...

Et tu, technocrat

According to the latest news from Italy, it looks like not even the country's technocrats are immune from scandals. Carlo Malinconico (whose surname means 'melancholic' in Italian, see picture), an EU Law Professor serving as Undersecretary to the Presidency in Mario Monti's cabinet, has resigned this morning following allegations that he had his holidays paid for by a dodgy Italian builder.

According to wiretaps analysed by Italian prosecutors, between 2007 and 2008 Malinconico spent a couple of weekends at the five-star luxurious Hotel Il Pellicano in Porto Ercole (part of Italy's glamorous Argentario peninsula in Tuscany) without paying a single cent. The roughly €20,000 bill was, it turned out, footed by Francesco De Vito Piscicelli, an Italian builder who, along with other Italian entrepreneurs, is involved in a scandal over several tenders illegally obtained at the time of the latest G8 summit held in Italy in 2009.

Malinconico decided to resign, but it is still unclear whether a specific investigation will be launched over his relationship with Piscicelli & co. He maintains that, at the time, he wanted to pay the entire bill and that, when he realised that he would not be allowed to do so, he was so annoyed that he immediately cancelled all future reservations at Hotel Il Pellicano. Malinconico also says that he had no clue about who had paid for his holidays and that he is now ready to pay his fair share, if need be (maybe a bit late now).

Given that Monti's technocratic government was put in place precisely to move away from the dysfunctional politics that has haunted Italy over recent years, this episode, reminiscent of the Berlusconi years, is concerning. On the positive side, at least the mis-step is being forcefully dealt with, showing that perhaps lessons are being learnt...

Et tu, technocrat - as the Romans might have put it.

MEP claims he is innocent of corruption, just guilty of vanity

The Sunday Times’ expose has certainly shaken the bees nest at the European Parliament. So far four MEPs have been caught out, on video, agreeing to table amendments to EU directives in return for the promise of cash. However, despite being caught well and truly with their hands in the till, two MEPs are still professing their innocence to the charges and refuse to step down.

The latest to be busted is the Spanish MEP Pablo Zalban, who seems intent on bringing down the reputation of the European Parliament and his EPP party in the process.

In a comment revealing of his integrity, he told El Mundo yesterday that he met with the journalists posing as lobbyists “because I am well mannered” and also because the undercover journalist “was very good looking”.

After three meetings, Zalban actually put forward one amendment, out of two, that the undercover journalists suggested.

“One of these I rejected, but the second, after consulting with the assistants from the EPP, we thought it would enrich and improve the report because it protects small investors and goes in the same direction of consumer associations, and for this I incorporated it”, he said.

What will concern many is that Zalban claims that he acted “in all moments under the norms of the European Parliament” but was a victim of a "trap".

MEP in ‘cash-for-laws’ scandal replaced by...

A professional lobbyist.

No, we're not joking. Austrian MEP Ernst Strasser who was secretly filmed boasting to journalists, “Of course I’m a lobbyist, yes” will be succeeded by a two-times former MEP who runs his own lobbying firm.

Who better to replace an MEP disgraced for agreeing to amend EU laws on the promise of €100,000?

Strasser, who resigned after the Sunday Times released videos of him agreeing to propose amendments to EU laws for a €100,000 consultancy salary, is being replaced by Hubert Pirker, who himself worked as a professional lobbyist since leaving the European Parliament in 2009. He was an MEP from 1996-2004 and from 2006-2009.

The website of Pirker’s former consultancy firm “EU-Triconsult” has been removed from the internet, but under the firm’s services he offered prospective clients “my networks and my negotiation and lobbying experience with European and international institutions at your disposal.”

Meanwhile, the Romanian MEP implicated in the Sunday Times ‘cash-for-laws’ sting, former Foreign Minister Adrian Severin, has been expelled from the Socialist group in the European Parliament but has refused to resign from his post as an MEP. The third MEP involved in the scandal, former Slovenian Foreign Minister Zoran Thaler has resigned.

We asked yesterday whether the EP is reformable. This is not a good start.

Is the European Parliament reformable?

The European Parliament seems to stumble from one scandal to another. Be it the misuse of allowances, for example by claiming for daily subsistence to work in Brussels only to jet off for the weekend, their second pension schemes, or their junkets to island paradises, MEPs too often make the headlines for the wrong reasons.

But the Sunday Times' investigation published yesterday, now dubbed the 'cash-for-laws' scandal, leaves three MEPs standing accused of outright corruption. The article is behind the paywall, and well worth reading in full if you get the chance, but here are the key details:

- Three MEPs, Adrian Severin, the 56-year-old former Romanian deputy prime minister, Zoran Thaler, the former Slovenian foreign minister, and Ernst Strasser, a former interior minister in Austria, were all caught agreeing to propose amendments to EU laws believing they would be paid for this work with a €100,000 (£87,300) annual salary, a consultancy fee or both.

- The meetings with undercover journalists were secretly filmed and took place in bars, restaurants and the parliament’s two buildings in Brussels and Strasbourg. Severin later emailed the reporters saying: “Just to let you know that the amendment desired by you has been tabled in due time." Then sent an invoice for €12,000 for “consulting services concerning the codification of the Directive 94/19/EC, Directive 2009/14/EC and the amendments thereto”.

- The amendments were intended to dilute directives supposed to protect customers’ deposits after scandals such as the collapse of the Icelandic banks.

The sting has already claimed the heads of two of the MEPs, with Austrian MEP Strasser resigning immediately but claiming this was to avoid "damage" to his Austrian People's Party rather than because he'd done anything wrong.

Severin and Thaler, said that they knew it was a set-up and merely wanted to see where the exchange of emails would lead and initially refused to resign but, according to the latest reports, Thaler has now also done so. Severin has quit his job as deputy chairman of the Romanian Social Democracy Party, but so far held onto his seat at the European Parliament. The Group of European Socialists in the EP has however ordered him to Brussels to explain himself.

As the Sunday Times argued in its leader, this comes at a time when:

"The European parliament and its 736 members matter more now than at any time in its 53-year history. We live in an era when much of British law and a high proportion of the regulations that control our lives are determined in Europe. MEPs have the power to amend those laws and directives in a way that affects everybody."

The EP is launching its own investigation but, if they're found guilty and perhaps even if not, this particular story is shocking enough to engrain the 'gravy train' image of MEPs in the public's mind's eye for good. Various attempts to 'reform' the EP (back in 2009 there were some harmonisation of rules on pay and a ban on hiring family members as staff) have clearly done nothing to stop the rot.

One can't help thinking that the real root of the corruption and general money-grabbing behaviour of many MEPs is the fact that the EP still thinks that it can behave like a banana republic assembly without anyone noticing.

Perhaps MEPs should forgive people for taking the view that the EP, at the end, is not a 'real' Parliament. This was the conclusion of the German Constitutional Court, which said in its ruling on the Lisbon Treaty that:

"Measured against requirements placed on democracy in states, its election does not take due account of equality, and it is not competent to take authoritative decisions on political direction in the context of the supranational balancing of interests between the states. It therefore cannot support a parliamentary government and organise itself with regard to party politics in the system of government and opposition in such a way that a decision on political direction taken by the European electorate could have a politically decisive effect. Due to this structural democratic deficit, which cannot be resolved in an association of sovereign national states (Staatenverbund), further steps of integration that go beyond the status quo may undermine neither the States’ political power of action nor the principle of conferral."

Unfortunately, with the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty in particular, the EP now has extensive powers over laws that impact on people's everyday lives.

Scandals such as these will prompt more people to suggest that it's time to move on from the argument about getting rid of just one of the EP's extra seats in Strasbourg and consider scrapping the entire thing...

'ello, 'ello, 'ello

The European Police College, designed to train EU member states' police officers, has had its fair share of controversy in recent years. In February, MEPs on the European Parliament's Budgetary Committee refused to sign off its accounts amid a scandal over the "private use of public funds". Apparently, almost £21,000 in EU funds was wrongly paid out for staff use of cars, transport services, mobile phones and furniture.

So who better to put in charge of such an institution than a man under suspicion for corruption himself. We wish we were joking but today's Belgian daily De Morgen reports that the Belgian police officer who will preside over the executive board of the European Policy Academy (CEPOL) during the Belgian EU Presidency in 2010 is currently a corruption suspect.

You couldn't make this stuff up.

Tillack clashes with his accusers

During our debate in Brussels on Tuesday, Stern journalist Hans-Martin Tillack made some very interesting comments worth flagging up here.

Mr Tillack was arrested a few years ago at the instigation of the EU authorities after investigating EU fraud, but was later cleared. At our meeting he described how the staff in the Commission's DG Communication were behind the rumours which first lead to his arrest. Joe Hennon, the DG Communication Commissioner’s spokesman who was also present at our debate, objected saying: “It wasn’t the Commission. It was the Belgian police”. This was followed by laughter from the audience. Mr Hennon asked: “how many journalists have had the police knocking on their doors?”

Mr Tillack also lamented the re-appointment of Franz-Hermann Bruener as head of OLAF - the EU anti-fraud office which was criticised by the EU ombudsman for its handling of the Tillack case – by EU Communications Commissioner Margot Wallström, amongst others.

Commenting on Open Europe’s book, Mr Tillack said: “the PR of the Commission is not only biased, it is also simply wrong. One example is how often the Commission tries to diminish its importance and compares its number of employees to the typical medium-sized city council in Europe, while this is beside the point. The Commission has no nurses, no police. Actually you have to compare the Commission to, for example, the German federal government… the Commission has more employees than the German federal government.”

He continued: “it is highly questionable and unacceptable that the Commission is paying media outlets for reports. A friend of mine is an independent TV journalist who wanted to make a report on fraud in Brussels, but a German TV station did not want to go on with it, as they said they didn’t want to loose the funding they’re receiving from the Commission.”

He went to say that: “in the European Parliament, only eurosceptic groups question the Commission, and not the big traditional groups, so the whole EU system is a lot more vulnerable to corruption and waste as a lot goes unreported.”

Upside down

Private Eye highlights one of the EU's many contradictions:

Under the rules of the EU's grandly named 3rd Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financing of Terrorism Directive (directive 2005/60/EC), the UK's Financial Services Authority is now obliged to examine the personal details of those connected to religious and charitable organisations on the pretext that they may be plotting terrorist activities, and has sent a demand for the information, warning that "non-compliance of regulatory obligations" would be "serious".

Meanwhile, EU bosses have offered €11bn in aid to the Bulgarian government - despite widespread reports of corruption and money laundering in the country, and despite Bulgaria's failure to identify the source of crime when it joined the EU last year.

Criminal gangs are now so rife that the Bulgarian MP Atanas Atanasov, a former counter-intelligence chief, has commentedL "Other countries have the mafia. In Bulgaria, the mafia has the country."