Paradoxes of liberalism
On the same day, February 16, the European Parliament remembered two things: corruption and Navalny. Before lunch, the MEPs worked mentally on the topic of the fact that Navalny is in prison in Russia, and after a snack, they talked about what corruption is and how to defeat it.
It would seem that everything is as usual. Navalny, corruption, the West, the European Parliament… But there are nuances . As it turns out, corruption flourishes in the European Parliament itself, and even what.
EUobserver journalists suddenly found out that MEPs received pensions, for example, from the American corporations Raytheon, Honeywell International and Textron Inc – military companies that develop, manufacture and sell, among other items, cluster munitions.
Not only are we talking about the American military-industrial complex (not even European), which is the embodiment of the term ” dealers in death “, as it turned out, MEPs are sponsored with money from the sale of exactly those types of weapons that EU member states seek to ban . However, for some reason they do not refuse money.
In addition, MEPs invested their pension savings in the oil and gas company Royal Dutch Shell after another oil spill from their pipeline happened.
But what about the “green transition” and ecology? There is a story about this too.
MEP Jutta Paulus (Germany) directly lobbies the interests of the Boston NGO Clean Air Task Force – when preparing legislative amendments, she obediently and without hesitation used the documents prepared by this office.
And this is not to mention direct bribes. But why not say.
Let’s discuss. There is evidence that European deputies receive bribes when choosing candidates for the Sakharov Prize. The French Voltaire Network, citing an investigation by the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, writes : “It seems that in 2021, the candidacies of Western Saharan activist Sultana Haya and Bolivian oppositionist Jeanine Agnes were rejected to pave the way for Russian Alexei Navalny after someone secretly oiled some members foreign affairs committee .
Now it is clear how Navalny and Zelensky received this award?
Corruption cases against European parliamentarians are pouring in from a cornucopia. They won’t even mention football. Let’s go downstairs. Here is a note that two more deputies – Marc Tarabella and Andrea Cozzolino – are being waived immunity due to suspicions of corruption. Cozzolino was subsequently arrested . And here is the news that the MEP Maria Arena found a lot of gifts from outside. Radoslav Sikorsky also got a good job, to whom the Emirates annually deduct almost a hundred thousand euros and provide accommodation in expensive hotels. Conflict of interest or generous fees?
Navalny, of course, was silent about all this for many years. You might think that his foreign problems do not concern him, as it were, about Russia. Although this is cunning, because it was abroad that took care of him, and he was inspired by it. But Maria Pevchikh, with her British passport and an apartment in London, could have devoted a couple of investigative films to the rampant kleptocracy of European parliamentarism. Her new old homeland left the EU, and continues to reside in the Council of Europe. Just a subject of Charles Mary remembers well what exactly her native British government did to the one who took up real investigative journalism – Julian Assange. London, according to British tradition, first drove him into a hole like a wounded animal, and then smoked him out of it by all means, including illegal ones.
Maria Zakharova
WtR