The top 5 of the past weeks: scandals, funding, and lobby wars in the EU
Follow the Money EU
‘When in doubt, follow the money.’ This principle guides all our work. Our independent newsroom digs deeper.
Welcome to the biweekly newsletter of Follow the Money’s EU desk!
Read the latest news about our investigations into the European Union and get tips for further reading, viewing, and listening.
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In this edition:
Political parties and their money
Last week we published the results of our yearlong investigation into the finances of political parties in Europe. It showed that the identity of the large majority of people and companies who donate to politicians remain hidden, that populist parties are getting more and more money, and that many parties are living in an ivory tower built from state subsidies.
Having worked with 50 journalists from around Europe, the stories were published all over the continent: from Finland to Greece, and from Ireland to Italy.
Adriana and I had a chance to present the findings to even more journalists last week, during the Data Harvest conference in Mechelen, Belgium. The unique datasets with financial information of the political parties (which is the foundation of our research) stoked the interest of several colleagues who work on topics as varied as democracy at a local level or ties between farmers and rightwing politicians.
The hard work, especially over the last few months, seems to be paying off now that the collected data can be used as a source of valuable information for many different investigations.
Jesse Pinster & Adriana Homolová
Wojciechowski used EU elections threat to push Von der Leyen to slash green policies for farmers
The farmers were angry in 2023. Angry about many things, among them the environmental obligations in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). To appease them, the European Commission already retracted the pesticide law in 2023, while Ursula von der Leyen’s own EPP party also gutted the nature restoration law. By the end of 2023 and the start of 2024, the farmer protests were intensifying across Europe, striking fear into the hearts of EU politicians.
One of those affected was Janusz Wojciechowski, the Polish Commissioner for agriculture. Follow the Money obtained a letter from Wojciechowski to von der Leyen after an information request. The letter, dated December 20th, shows the key role Wojciechowski played in weaponizing the upcoming EU elections to further dismantle the Green Deal.
In the letter, Wojciechowski informed the President of the Commission that Representatives and member states had asked him to ease environmental obligations from the policy. This was “an issue of political concern that can spiral further with a potential effect on the European election next year,” he said.
“To avoid a situation that a negative impact from the agriculture sector influences the European Election next year,” Wojciechowski wrote, “I kindly ask you to consider giving some thought for a further analysis on this topic.”
We all know what happened after. Not two months later, after farmers had taken their tractors to Brussels in January and February, von der Leyen gave in, without doing any consultation rounds or studies on the consequences for the environment. The official line: reducing ‘administrative burden’ for farmers. But the letter proves beyond a doubt that party politics played a significant role.
Jan Daalder
Sanna Marin’s paid to lobby for Ukraine
Sanna Marin, Finland’s youngest ever prime minister, made headlines across Europe while in office for attending a rock festival clad in jean shorts and a leather jacket, and when a video leaked of her drinking and dancing with friends. She also shepherded her country through a global pandemic and led it into NATO.
Since leaving office a year ago, Marin has joined the Tony Blair Institute as an advisor and has publicly supported Ukraine’s efforts to join the EU. And while she has not previously disclosed to the public what, exactly, she does at Tony Blair’s consultancy, working on the EU accession of Ukraine and Moldova is her “main role” there, as a document obtained by Follow the Money shows. That makes Marin the most prominent paid advocate for Ukraine’s (and Moldova’s) campaign to enter the European Union. (Read more)
Alexander Fanta
The scandalous candidates for the new European Parliament
In part two of our EU Misconduct series, we looked into the candidates of ten countries for the new European Parliament. We discovered that almost one in five candidates who have a realistic chance of winning a seat was involved in a scandal at one point in their career. The centre-right and right-wing European groups EPP, ECR and ID account for 62 of the 86 candidates caught with a scandal.
One of the most striking examples we found is the case of Slovak extreme-right candidate Milan Mazurek, an independent member, who was part of a mob in 2015 that threw stones at a Muslim family with a baby in a stroller. Mazurek himself screamed profanities at them. He later admitted his behaviour was “vulgar” but denied throwing stones.
Also the recent developments concerning the German Maximilian Krah and his Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party showcase the importance of constantly scrutinising who is allowed to sit in Parliament. The AfD was even kicked out of the right-wing ID-group after Krah made controversial remarks about the Nazi Germany’s Waffen SS.
Read more about this cross-border investigation in which, with journalists from across Europe, we collected media clippings from ten EU countries: Germany, France, Spain, Poland, Romania, Netherlands, Belgium, Slovakia, Croatia and Slovenia.
Alistair Keepe
A French minister (and former MEP)’s suspicious Qatar connections
French Culture Minister Rachida Dati has been helping out the man who is believed to have bribed several EU politicians in the Qatargate corruption scandal, new documents obtained by French investigative news outlet Blast and seen by Follow the Money reveal. The events took place when Dati was a lawmaker for the centre-right European People’s Party in the European Parliament.
Dati’s messages with and about Qatar’s labour minister Ali bin Samikh al Marri suggest Dati was providing a range of services to Al Marri: from promoting his public relations to ghostwriting his letters to French politicians and informing him about Qatar’s regional rival, the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Reminder: in what became known as the Qatargate affair, Belgian police described Al Marri as the leader of Qatar’s efforts to bribe several (former) members of the European Parliament. The first services the group provided to Al Marri reportedly date back to April 2018.
Read our full story on how Dati lended a hand to Qatar here — and for the French speakers: the scoop from our media partner Blast.
Simon van Dorpe