European Parliament Resists Belgian Huawei Corruption Probes

The Euro­pean Par­lia­ment is resist­ing Bel­gian cor­rup­tion probes linked to Huawei influ­ence oper­a­tions. Eurac­tiv report­ed that Par­lia­ment has refused to lift immu­ni­ty for four MEPs six months after Bel­gian pros­e­cu­tors request­ed waivers in a Chi­nese influ­ence inves­ti­ga­tion, with Legal Affairs Com­mit­tee mem­bers ques­tion­ing pros­e­cu­tor cred­i­bil­i­ty in tense exchanges with fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor Ann Fransen. The arti­cle begins:

Three years after the Qatar­gate scan­dal shook the EU to its core, the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment is qui­et­ly push­ing back against Bel­gian author­i­ties inves­ti­gat­ing alle­ga­tions of wrong­do­ing among law­mak­ers. A Eurac­tiv inves­ti­ga­tion has uncov­ered testy exchanges between mem­bers of Par­lia­men­t’s Legal Affairs Com­mit­tee and a senior Bel­gian pros­e­cu­tor, sig­nalling a show­down over the role Bel­gium’s judi­cia­ry should play in polic­ing the EU’s demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions. Though the clash sur­rounds the nar­row ques­tion of whether to lift the immu­ni­ty of MEPs sus­pect­ed of wrong­do­ing, its out­come could car­ry pro­found impli­ca­tions for the over­sight of Europe’s cen­tral bodies.

Read more: https://www.euractiv.com/news/investigation-european-parliament-tells-belgian-prosecutor-to-stay-in-lane-on-corruption-probes/

Key Points

• Par­lia­ment has resist­ed Bel­gian requests to lift immu­ni­ties for four law­mak­ers six months after waivers were request­ed in a Huawei-relat­ed probe, with Legal Affairs Com­mit­tee chair Ilhan Kyuchyuk writ­ing that Bel­gium’s case was not sub­stan­ti­at­ed suf­fi­cient­ly to reach a con­clu­sion and demand­ing evi­dence details.
• Bel­gian fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor Ann Fransen warned in Sep­tem­ber that MEPs are meant only to ver­i­fy whether an immu­ni­ty request is polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed, not to demand access to evi­dence, argu­ing that such requests risk under­min­ing inves­tiga­tive secre­cy and the pre­sump­tion of innocence.
• When news broke in March of a Bel­gian inquiry into Par­lia­ment tied to alleged Huawei influ­ence oper­a­tions, Pres­i­dent Rober­ta Met­so­la denounced the pros­e­cu­tor’s care­less­ness after an immu­ni­ty request tar­get­ed an MEP who nev­er attend­ed the alleged event, open­ly ques­tion­ing the cred­i­bil­i­ty of Bel­gium’s judi­cial system.
• Some MEPs pri­vate­ly acknowl­edge immu­ni­ty deci­sions have become bar­gain­ing chips in inter-group pol­i­tics amid accu­sa­tions of back­room maneu­vers to shield the insti­tu­tion or cer­tain polit­i­cal fam­i­lies from scruti­ny, with resis­tance to the Huawei probe described as unprece­dent­ed by a com­mit­tee member.

Qatar Influence Operations: Global Lobbying, Media Manipulation, and Academic Funding Networks

Qatar has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly cul­ti­vat­ed a mul­ti­di­men­sion­al soft pow­er port­fo­lio span­ning cri­sis diplo­ma­cy, elite edu­ca­tion fund­ing, media oper­a­tions, and reli­gious out­reach to extend its influ­ence far beyond what its small size would sug­gest. The nation has posi­tioned itself as a lead­ing medi­a­tor in inter­na­tion­al crises includ­ing Afghanistan, Lebanon, Yemen, and Gaza, lever­ag­ing diplo­mat­ic chan­nels to build influ­ence while host­ing con­tro­ver­sial fig­ures. Qatar’s Media City project part­ners with inter­na­tion­al news agen­cies includ­ing Ger­many’s DPA, CNN, and Euronews to posi­tion Doha as a hub for inter­na­tion­al jour­nal­ism, though crit­ics warn this ini­tia­tive serves to laun­der Qatar’s glob­al image and exert behind-the-scenes influ­ence over polit­i­cal debates in tar­get countries.

In Europe, Qatar Char­i­ty has oper­at­ed across more than 50 coun­tries, pro­vid­ing sub­stan­tial fund­ing to 140 mosques, cul­tur­al cen­ters, and schools asso­ci­at­ed with the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in France, Ger­many, Bosnia, and Italy. This reli­gious soft pow­er extends to Euro­pean Mus­lim Broth­er­hood youth orga­ni­za­tions that sought mil­lions for Brus­sels oper­a­tions. Ger­man doc­u­men­tary inves­ti­ga­tions revealed Qatar Char­i­ty func­tions as what researchers describe as the “reli­gious soft pow­er of Doha,” chan­nel­ing fund­ing to advance polit­i­cal Islam through­out Europe while Qatari author­i­ties deny mis­sion­ary activ­i­ty in the West.

In the Unit­ed States, Qatar has deployed exten­sive influ­ence oper­a­tions through strate­gic lob­by­ing, media manip­u­la­tion, and aca­d­e­m­ic fund­ing. Since 1986, Qatar has poured more than $6 bil­lion into Amer­i­can high­er education—including George­town, Texas A&M, North­west­ern, and Cornell—making Qatar the sin­gle largest for­eign donor to U.S. uni­ver­si­ties. Accord­ing to the Amer­i­can Enter­prise Insti­tute, this fund­ing rais­es con­cerns about cur­ric­u­lar influ­ence and aca­d­e­m­ic auton­o­my on Mid­dle East top­ics, with research by the Insti­tute for the Study of Glob­al Anti­semitism and Pol­i­cy iden­ti­fy­ing cor­re­la­tions between Qatari fund­ing and cam­pus envi­ron­ments where anti-Israel rhetoric thrives.

Accord­ing to the Quin­cy Insti­tute, Qatar cur­rent­ly employs 28 reg­is­tered lob­by­ing firms under FARA, includ­ing three of the top-earn­ing firms in 2024, and has secured more in-per­son meet­ings with pol­i­cy­mak­ers than any oth­er coun­try glob­al­ly between 2021 and mid-2025.

Fol­low­ing Don­ald Trump’s 2024 elec­tion vic­to­ry, Qatari for­eign agents dra­mat­i­cal­ly shift­ed their media out­reach from gen­er­al out­lets to con­ser­v­a­tive plat­forms, increas­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions to right-wing media from just over 10% before the elec­tion to more than half of all media cor­re­spon­dence. This tac­ti­cal piv­ot secured high-pro­file inter­views includ­ing Tuck­er Carl­son’s friend­ly exchange with Qatar’s Prime Min­is­ter, facil­i­tat­ed by Lumen8 Advi­sors at $180,000 month­ly. The Hill reports that sev­er­al key Trump admin­is­tra­tion fig­ures main­tain close finan­cial or lob­by­ing ties to Doha, includ­ing Attor­ney Gen­er­al Pam Bon­di, who pre­vi­ous­ly lob­bied for Qatar at $115,000 month­ly, demon­strat­ing how Qatar strate­gi­cal­ly employs elite net­works and finan­cial lever­age to secure influ­ence across West­ern polit­i­cal systems.

Exter­nal References:
• Soft Pow­er, Hard Influ­ence: How Qatar Became a Giant in Wash­ing­ton (Quin­cy Institute)
• Sav­ing Amer­i­can Uni­ver­si­ties Requires Crack­ing Down on For­eign Fund­ing (Amer­i­can Enter­prise Institute)
• Qatar’s US influ­ence strat­e­gy goes much deep­er than you think (The Hill)

Dis­claimer: The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.