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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mephisto who wrote (3916)	6/29/2001 4:48:59 PM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 93284

Is there no end to the corruption in the EU? ISSUE 2224 Wednesday 27 June 2001 Scandal hangs over Belgium's EU presidency By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Brussels BELGIUM'S incoming presidency of the European Union is being overshadowed by mounting allegations of corruption in the Foreign Ministry, including the systematic sale of EU entry visas to criminal gangs. Flemish members of the Belgian parliament are pressing for a full commission of inquiry, indignant that not a single member of Belgium's mandarin class has been brought to account for abuses over many years. The Foreign Minister, Louis Michel, has told the parliament it has a duty to hold back to safeguard the country's image during its six-month stint in charge of the EU, which begins on Sunday. The worst case stems from the testimony of a senior Belgian diplomat, Myrianne Coen, who has filed a lawsuit alleging that members of the Belgian embassy in Bulgaria sold entry visas to members of Balkan and Russian gangs, as well as large numbers of immigrants, when she was first secretary in Sofia during the 1990s. Miss Coen is also suing Mr Michel, alleging that his officials withheld documents in her case. This claim is denied by the Foreign Ministry, whose protocol section is enmeshed in a separate scandal over the sale of diplomatic status "red cards" to Russian criminals and others. The case erupted in 1997 when French police caught a notorious gangster in Paris carrying the documents. It has now become the focus of attention because only one lowly official has been charged. Senior officials have all been promoted. Belgium's equal opportunities commission has joined both cases as a "civil party", arguing that it is necessary to establish how far the Belgian government and the judicial apparatus have fallen under the control of criminal gangs. Hearings in the Belgian parliament also disclosed last month that a criminal inquiry has been opened into the alleged sale of visas by the former Belgian ambassador in Nigeria. Miss Coen claims that the criminal operation in Sofia was run by a senior diplomat in liaison with handling agents from Bulgarian criminal gangs. The case involved a sophisticated use of front companies in Belgium, which made fictitious requests for work visas - worth up to £2,850 in fees. Belgian police documents obtained by The Telegraph show that several EU embassies in Sofia were accepting "pots de vin" (bribes), although one report said "the Scandinavians and the Swiss are impenetable", while the British embassy was "one of the most difficult". The documents, based on interviews conducted by Belgian investigators in Sofia and articles in the Bulgarian press, said the French were charging £650 to provide visas for Turks and gypsies. The visas give applicants open access to all the countries of the EU's Schengen zone, which Britain has not yet joined. Miss Coen, who now serves in Belgium's Oslo embassy, said she was the victim of reprisals after she reported the alleged abuses to the Foreign Ministry in April 1997, while the senior diplomat was promoted. He has never been interviewed by an investigating magistrate during the case, which has already been bounced along to six different judges. The only official currently targeted is the diplomat's former secretary, then 23, who said she was acting under orders. The Belgian Foreign Ministry said yesterday it could not take disciplinary action against a civil servant once a judicial investigation is under way, making it impossible to sanction the diplomat. Mr Michel's spokesman said: "The wheels of justice turn very slowly in Belgium and that's a great pity but it's not the Foreign Ministry's fault." Italy's leading anti-Mafia crusader, Fernando Imposimato, has joined Miss Coen's team as a consulting lawyer, saying the case has been handled scandalously by the judicial authorities so far. telegraph.co.uk