New Details in the Makhzen Regime-EU Corruption Scandal
The political corruption scandal, in which the Moroccan Makhzen regime is accused after being involved in buying off European MPs to employ them to serve its interests, continues to give rise to new crises in addition to the crises that burdened Rabat in its relations with its Maghreb neighbours and the European Union.
What is new in this scandal is that it has reached the columns of the Anglo-Saxon media known for its great influence, including the British newspaper, the Financial Times, which devoted a focused investigation that delved into the depth of this issue, which gained its right of media circulation, but has not yet reached a political treatment that rises to the level of this scandal that shook the pillars of the political institutions in the European Union.
The Financial Times titled its report: “Spies, Cash and Luxury Hotels: EU Corruption Probe Explores Mrorocco’s Links”, through which it monitored the extensions of the corruption network in the old continent and those involved in it with names and facts, in the latest media circulation of this scandal, which threatens the fall of big officials of both parties.
In addition to the names involved in this scandal, which are the former Italian MEP, Pier Antonio Panzeri, who served as the link between the Moroccan Foreign Intelligence Service (the Directorate General for Studies and Documentation) and its agents, Abderrahim Atmoun, Morocco’s ambassador to Poland, and Mohamed Belahrech, one of the assistants of the DGSD’s general director, Mohamed Yassine El Mansouri, on the one hand, and European MEPs accused of corruption on the other hand.
The newspaper discussed in detail the services rendered by the accused MEPs to the Moroccan regime.
The report by the Financial Times went back to the period when Antonio Panzeri was MEP, that is, before 2018, and shed light on his positions and the elements of his network on issues of concern to the Moroccan regime, especially the Western Sahara issue, and “the agreement signed between Rabat and the European Union concerning the fishing rights and the recognition of Morrocan Sovereignty over the territorial waters of occupied Western Sahara, but the European court annulled two trade and fisheries agreements between Brussels and Morocco because the people of Western Sahara had not been properly consulted”.
This case, the English newspaper says, was the result of a continuous monitoring process carried out by the Belgian intelligence officers, accompanied by the security services of many European countries, and targeted in particular the circles that were carrying out “lobbying” operations for the benefit of the Makhzen regime within the institutions of the European Union, especially the European Parliament.
This continuous surveillance, which focused in particular on the former Italian MEP, Antonio Panzeri, and his family (his wife and daughter), by planting surveillance cameras in his Brussels home after having discovered 700.000 euros in cash stashed there, an operation that resulted in the seizure of gifts and cash that were delivered by the Moroccan ambassador to Poland to the family of the former Italian MEP, who had previously visited Morocco and received from its King Mohammed VI, a medal that is given only to those who rendered great services to the Makhzen regime.
The newspaper revealed that Panzeri and his family were received in a five-star hotel in Marrakech, at the Moroccan government’s expense.
The Financial Times quoted a former British MEP, Charles Tannock, who previously authored a black report on the human rights situation in Morocco in 2013, confirming that Panzeri tried to influence him to mitigate the severity of those criticisms, even though the content of the report reflects the reality of the violations that the Moroccan people suffer from. On this level. Banziri also tried to defend democracy in Morocco and downplay the importance of the democratic leap in neighbouring Tunisia, despite the huge difference between the two cases in 2012.
The well-known Moroccan journalist, Ali Lmrabet, confirmed in a video, that he was invited by the European Parliament to discuss the human rights situation in Morocco, but he was surprised that he was removed from the platform of Parliament by a group of MEPs, while he was intervening by a group of MEPs, led by Panzeri, a French MEP called Pargneaux and another from Romania, who called the members of the Moroccan delegation “Our Friends”.