Return hubs controversy, ECB’s document withholding, and fake EU jobs scam
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In this edition:
The EU migration summit and what to make of the Dutch political mess
Around the EU migration summit last week, things were heating up in The Hague. Reinette Klever, the Dutch Minister of Foreign Trade and Development from Geert Wilders’ radical rightwing party PVV, made headlines with her proposal to send rejected asylum-seekers to “return hubs” in Uganda. Neither the Ugandan government nor Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof claimed to know about this. Nevertheless, the prime minister brought up the idea the next day in Brussels at the migration summit.
Klever’s controversial moves aren’t new, but it raises an interesting question from a political-strategic point of view: has the liberal VVD of former prime minister and now NATO leader Mark Rutte pulled off a political masterstroke? By forming a coalition with electoral competitors PVV and farmers’ party BBB, and assigning them the very portfolios they championed in opposition – migration and agriculture respectively – the VVD may have made a smart political gamble.?
So far, this setup has made life difficult for ministers in these positions, while the VVD keeps control of key long-term departments Finance, Energy, Justice and Defence. If the coalition collapses, the VVD can easily move forward with other political parties, without those key departments having shifted direction. This strategy has kept the Dutch liberals at the centre of power for over 14 years.?
However, the lack of solid plans (and the abundance of trial balloons) isn’t exactly moving the country forward. The bigger question is how this affects public trust in politics – especially if the same opportunism spills into European politics via the European Council.?
In the area of migration, we’ve already seen how plans initiated by member states – such as spreading discouraging information for potential migrants (see this story), migration deals (see this story) and the opportunistic redirection of development aid funds (see this story) – have been put into practice. Upon closer inspection, these plans primarily undermine human rights and have little real impact.
You can therefore be assured that we will also follow the latest ideas around the “return hubs” with a critical eye.
Lise Witteman
ECB refuses to disclose documents on Signa collapse
Last year, the Signa real estate empire collapsed under its massive debt, wiping out investments from wealthy figures like German industry billionaire Klaus-Michael Kuehne and France's Peugeot family. The group owned prime assets such as New York’s Chrysler Building and British retailer Selfridges.
Signa’s fall has raised questions about the exposure of the banks, which were its biggest lenders, and the role of regulators. In August 2023, as Signa neared collapse, the European Central Bank (ECB) urged banks to write down their Signa loans or prepare for losses – a warning resisted by both the banks and the Signa group’s advisory board, led by former Austrian chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer.
A few days later, Gusenbauer emailed Helmut Ettl, head of Austria’s financial markets authority, to complain about the ECB’s on-site inspections of the banks linked to Signa, claiming they skewed the company’s portfolio valuation. “We ask for your support in clearing the matter [with the ECB]”, he reportedly wrote to Ettl, who is a voting member of the Supervisory Board for banking supervision at the ECB.
The next day, the Austrian financial markets authority, led by Ettl, passed Gusenbauer’s concerns to the ECB, according to an email obtained by Follow the Money through a freedom of information request and shared with Austrian daily Die Presse. “Maybe the contained information is relevant for you”, the email reads. The ECB heavily redacted the email and refused to disclose who relayed Gusenbauer’s lobbying or how Signa’s concerns were framed.
In a decision signed by its President Christine Lagarde, the ECB stated that full disclosure of the email “would rather negatively affect the commercial interest of the credit institutions concerned and the effectiveness of banking supervision as a whole without significantly enhancing the public knowledge of the facts surrounding Signa’s financial situation.”
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Questions still linger about the role of Austrian authorities in Signa’s demise and possible last-minute lobbying in Frankfurt. Follow the Money has filed further requests with Germany’s financial regulator and Bundesbank, seeking more clarity. We’ll keep you updated.
Alexander Fanta
Other stories from the EU bubble
Le Pen appears in court over alleged fake EU jobs scam
Last week, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen appeared before a Paris criminal court to defend herself against allegations that she embezzled EU funds by fictitiously employing European Parliament assistants. The hearings are part of a two-month trial involving 27 members and employees of her party, then known as the Front National, who are accused of diverting European funds to finance their national party activities.
In court, Le Pen compared the European Parliament to a “blob”, a single-cell organism, which has no contact with the outside world. “The Parliament devours its members. You can eat there, sleep there, go to the hairdresser,” Le Pen said in an effort to justify why her employees were staying far away from the parliament.?
Meanwhile, Follow the Money was contacted by French international news television channel France24 to provide insights into our investigation, which revealed that nearly 140 EU lawmakers misused money for assistants between 2019 and 2022. Without downplaying any illegal behaviour of Marine Le Pen’s party, it is worth noting that the European Parliament only sent a fraction of these cases to the relevant authorities. Are some MEPs more equal than others??
Simon Van Dorpe
Our latest investigations
A frequent flyer tax could raise billions without impacting average travellers
A small, wealthy group flies frequently, while everyone else bears the environmental cost. But what if a tax targeted only frequent flyers, leaving occasional holiday travellers untouched? A new study shows how such as progressive tax at the EU level could cut emissions and raise tens of billions annually – all without affecting the average European.
Discover more about this bold initiative in our article.
Fraud charges against a carbon credit pioneer highlight wider industry problems
Are carbon credits really helping the fight against climate change? Big companies like BP and Shell use them to balance out their emissions, but the carbon offset industry is facing growing criticism, with many doubting its real impact.
Fraud accusations against carbon offset pioneer Ken Newcombe – who allegedly faked climate impact data from cooking stove projects in Africa and Asia to cash in on carbon credits – are fuelling these doubts, and raising concerns about how the industry is regulated.
We looked into it, check it here.
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