Metsola tries to sneak his protégé into the position of general secretary

The Italian Alessandro Chiocchetti he is already the favorite to occupy the position of greatest power among European civil servants. And, beyond its controversial past, the problem is that if procedures are distorted ad hoc to favor the protégé of the president of the Chamber, it happens that organizations of the prestige of International Transparency can accuse you of “corruption”.

Chiocchetti does not meet the requirements set forth in the regulations. but the maltese Roberta MetzolaPresident of the European Parliament, has changed the rules to favor her Chief of Staff thanks to a strange political pact between the Popular Group, the liberals and the radicals of the Left.

This is how things have been going in recent weeks in the dark race to elect the new general secretary of the European Parliament.

[Entrevista – Roberta Metsola: “El Parlamento Europeo investigará todo lo necesario sobre Pegasus”]

The President’s Cabinet Director was upgraded, by direct decision of Metsola, as soon as he took office, just six months ago. With that promotion from her boss, she gave him the category AD-15but Chiocchetti now wants to take another leap and occupy the office with the highest bureaucratic rank.

The internal rule dictated that only officials of AD-16 rank can ‘oppose’ this position. But, at the same time that the Table of the Chamber decided to create a new General Directorate, well endowed financially and that fell into the hands of The Left, the representatives of this parliamentary group supported the popular in a change in the regulation that lowers the necessary category to apply for the position.

Thanks to the skillful work in recent years of the current owner of the chair, the German Klaus Wellethe General Secretariat of the European Parliament is the best paid position (about 250,000 euros per year) and with the most power in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg, the three headquarters of “the House”.

Chiocchetti is not the only applicant, but he is the only one that did not meet that essential requirement. Metsola, a member of the PPE, would achieve with this movement to consolidate the popular in a key position and, incidentally, have his right hand at the head of the civil servant pipes of the European Parliament.

Global Corruption Index

International Transparency is a multilateral NGO that promotes the fight against corporate crime and political corruption in the international arena. Founded in 1993, it annually publishes the Corruption Perception Indexa worldwide corporate corruption list.

According to its 2021 report, published in January this year, Denmark, Finland Y New Zealand They tie for first place as the least corrupt countries in the world, with a score of 88 out of 100. The four worst “highly corrupt” countries are Venezuela (14/100), Somalia Y Syria (13/100) and South Sudan (11/100).

According to this ranking, the EU as a whole would rank 29th of the 180 countries studied in the world, with a score of 66 out of 100, just behind the United States. Spain gets a 61/100 and falls one place, to 34th, ahead of Portugal.

Parliaments are the house of democracy, seats of representation and sovereignty of the people. The only powers elected by the citizens in which, in addition to legislators of all stripes (according to the vote), there are customary tradition of respect for minorities. But they also need a hidden power, a body of stable officials to make them work.

The EU, whose origin is the Common Market, is the greatest commercial power of the world with 450 million inhabitantsless than a third of those of China wave India. In the absence of greater geopolitical weight at a global level, there is no doubt that the secretary general of an institution such as the European Parliament is a person with enormous power.

“Nepotism” and “corruption”

As a high-ranking European official recalls, Welle has held that post for the last 13 years. He has therefore been a witness to the financial crisis and its legislative consequences, first, and the crisis of the coronavirus and the “first step towards federalization” which was the birth of the pooled debt, later. In between, he has dealt with the Brexitthe crisis of syrian refugeesthe green revolution and those derived from war in ukraine.

During this time, he has also been the manager of the increase in powers of a Chamber that previously exercised merely Europe’s moral beacon and today it can veto legislation that affects 27 countries and even promote sanctions against sovereign governments.

But Welle retires at the end of 2022. And occupying his chair means handling dozens of levers, influencing all the general directorates and political committees. In addition to having about 2,000 million euros of budget and direct to 8,132 officials and hired staff in 24 different languages.

That is why the underground war has been open for weeks. And that is why Metsola, president of the largest forum for legislative and democratic debate in the world and so far admired by allhas lost its aura between accusations of “nepotism” and “corruption”.

The Selmayr background

Chiocchetti’s case is very reminiscent – it is almost traced – to a previous one, the one that starred in the shade of Jean-Claude Junckerformer president of the European Commission, in 2018. Then he expedited the appointment of Martin SelmayrJuncker’s chief of staff, as secretary general of the institution.

But then, the European Parliament was understandably outraged and described the maneuver as “an action similar to a coup that forces and possibly even exceeds the limits of the law”.

Selmayr had been promoted from Cabinet Director to Deputy Secretary General, and then to Secretary General, all during a single meeting of the College of Commissionersand without going through the normal selection procedures.

Something similar has happened in the last month in the European Parliament: the Bureau of the European Parliament approved an armed agreement between the PPE, the Left and the Liberals of Renew to create a 13th Directorate General entirely in Parliament’s secretariat.

The new office will be named after General Directorate of Parliamentary Associations for Democracybut its specific role has not yet been officially reported.

According to a senior official quoted by the specialized web magazine Politicalthe simple reality is that you are “making the cake bigger” so that the Left gets its share. And, incidentally, a leadership position that is accompanied by a monthly salary of around 20,000 euros. Other workers pointed out that the new General Directorate will be redundant and will duplicate the work already done by Foreign Policy.

In return, these same groups would support the change of norms for the lightning rise of Chiocchetti, despite objections from other political groups and public officials in Parliament’s administration, angered by what they see as blatant patronage.

Although the truth is that this new “chiringuito”, as described by high officials of the Parliament consulted by this newspaper, would only fulfill another dubious tradition, that of redundancy between directorates-general. Without going any further, there are three -the Logistics and Interpretation for Conferencesthat of Translation and of Infrastructure and Logistics– with very diffuse borders.

Each of them has four offices with politically appointed directors, who receive a high salary for reporting to their CEOs.

dirty battle

The scandal has already splashed Metsola in its country and in newspaper articles published in France, Italy and Belgium.

The battle has also been littered with memories of Chiocchetti’s own past, who is reminded of his work as right hand in the former MEP Marcello dell’Utriwho was a lieutenant to former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and, later, sentenced to seven years in prison for his relations with the Sicilian mafia.

When it broke out four years ago the very similar Selmayr casethe European Parliament cried out for “the reputational damage caused to the EU as a whole”, and voted overwhelmingly to demand the resignation of the official for not having respected “the principles of transparency, ethics and the rule of law in the procedure to appoint him Secretary General”.

Now, Transparency International is taking the colors out of Metsola for its proceeding “clearly alien to its own calls for greater transparency”. For example, the vacancy was advertised in a six-line advertisement, with no formal qualifications required for the position, with a deadline of August 1, the day the EU institutions traditionally close for holidays.

The incredible circumstance is that only two months ago, last May, the European Parliament voted a resolution calling on its secretary-general to “ensure transparency and fairness during senior management appointment procedures.” House staff unions are now on the warpath.

In addition, Transparency International denounces that when carrying out its last study on the integrity and ethics of the European institutions, the European Parliament was the only one of the three (together with the Commission and the Council) that refused to cooperate.

And the sentence on this was as follows: “The EP must hold itself to a higher standard, particularly for its leading role in holding other EU institutions to account and in safeguard democratic legitimacy of the Union”.