Unlike her colleague, the Belgian Socialist MEP Marc Tarabella, the Belgian authorities did not request the lifting of Marie Arena’s parliamentary immunity from the European Parliament.
The Belgian MEP from the Socialist party, Marie Arenaresigned today as chairman of its Human Rights subcommittee European Parliamentas reported by the Belgian agency Belga.
Marie Arena said today that she decided to permanently leave the commission’s presidency, while she had already retired from her duties at the beginning of December, after the revelations about the corruption scandal from Qatar and Morocco.
Unlike her colleague, the Belgian Socialist MEP Marc Tarabella, the Belgian authorities did not request the lifting of Marie Arena’s parliamentary immunity from the European Parliament. “The Belgian authorities have not requested the lifting of my parliamentary immunity, while neither my office nor my home have been searched and I have not been questioned in any way by the judiciary,” Marie Arena told the Belga news agency.
The Belgian MEP has not been charged with corruption, but her name is regularly mentioned in the Belgian media, mainly because of her close ties to Italian former MEP Antonio Panzeri, who is in custody on charges of organized crime, corruption and money laundering. money.
According to today’s report by Politico, Marie Arena admitted that the Qatari government provided her travel and accommodation in Doha in May 2022, while she failed to inform, for reasons of transparency, the competent agency of the European Parliament. On her trip to Doha, Arena participated in a human rights conference held by the Qatar National Human Rights Commission, entitled “The European Union and Human Rights”. Another attendee was Qatargate defendant and remand in custody, Nicolo Figa Talamanga, whose travel and accommodation was also provided by Qatar.
The Human Rights subcommittee’s “friendly relationship” with Qatar did not begin last May, Politico points out. In fact, it goes back to the time Pancheri was president of the commission (from 2017 to 2019), when he made a special deal with Qatar. Marie Arena succeeded him as chairman of the committee when Pancheri left his position.
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