by Paolo Valentino
He started out as a TV presenter in Thessaloniki. The debut in politics, the maneuvers against the former Socialist leader Papandreu, the arrival in Strasbourg. Suspicious trips and suitcases full of money
They say that Eva Kaili owes the start of her political career to her resemblance to Eleni Rapti, a Thessaloniki MP for Néa Dimokratia, the conservative party. Indeed, it was the desperate search for a new face to counter the latter, a flamboyant candidate in the 2004 Greek elections, that drew local Pasok leaders’ attention to the young journalist, popular Mega Channel presenter, architecture and international relations studied, judged and thrift, blond and telegenic like the rapti.
Before the unelected
But it didn’t go well, as Kaili was the first of those not elected in Greece’s second city. And perhaps there also began his animosity towards Georgios Papandreou, who, both in Thessaloniki and in Patras, opted for the former and left out Eva Kaili. He probably swears to her, if it’s true that when the Greeks went to the polls again three years later, in 2007, and this time she entered the Greek Parliament with over a hundred thousand preferences, again for Pasok, Kaili became a kind of Bastian against the socialist leader who has always distrusted her.
Dirty game
For whatever reason, if it’s true that Kaili was the ultimate cause of Papandreou’s downfall. It happened in 2011 when, at the height of the Greek crisis, the socialist prime minister, under pressure from Merkel and Sarkozy, accepted the austerity measures imposed by the EU but announced that he would first put them through a referendum. After Sarkozy summoned him to the Nice summit, he resented him, but most importantly, Commission President José Manuel Barroso played dirty and persuaded Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos to rebel and organize a revolt within the party. It was like this. Papandreou only had a two-majority vote in Parliament, but before the vote to call the referendum took place, he received a letter from an MP: “I must put personal or party interest ahead of national interest. I will vote against you.” The signature was that of Eva Kaili, immediately copied by two other colleagues. Papandreou waived the referendum and resigned a few days later.
The vote against Macedonia
Of all Kaili’s positions in conflict with his party, the most famous is the ultra-nationalist one against the agreement that ended the long-running struggle between Greece and North Macedonia, with which Athens recognized the latter’s right to define themselves as such : «An irreparable damage to the history of Macedonia ( in the sense of the Greek region ed) and for the Greeks,” said the then Socialist MP, fully supporting the line of Néa Dimokratia.
The Trojan Horse
Nikos Androulakis, leader of the few remnants of Pasok who had since expelled the MEP on charges in Brussels, described Kaili as “the Conservative government’s Trojan horse” within the Socialist Party, a fifth column that has never missed an opportunity to fire team fire. And he mentions the recent episode of the wiretapping scandal commissioned by the government against the opposition, authentic Greek Watergate. Instead of condemning them, Kaili said they were nothing new or strange and dismissed them as irrelevant.
ubiquitous
The leap towards European politics came in 2014 with the election to the European Parliament, followed by reconfirmation in 2019 with promotion to Vice-President of the Assembly, announced in the first ballot with 454 votes among the 14 substitutes for Roberta Metsola. of which takes the place of relations with the Middle East. In Brussels and Strasbourg, Kaili seemed to be everywhere, active in committees, evaluation panels, parliamentary delegations, intergroups, special missions and more. Always ready to support noble causes such as human rights or the fight against corruption in her speeches. His strengths are digital issues and high tech, a few days ago he explained that the EU needs to do much more to help citizens acquire certain digital skills.”
The Emirs’ College of Defense
Then, or maybe even before that, came Qatar, the irresistible lightness of being. Gradually, Kaili became the recognized head of the emirate’s “defense college” in the Strasbourg Parliament. Last November 21 speech was surreal when the plenary passed a resolution “deploring the deaths of thousands of migrant workers”. On the contrary, Kaili became an Aedo of Qatar, which she defined as a “country at the forefront of workers’ rights,” perhaps confusing the latter with those killed at work. Then, ten days ago, she literally snuck into the Judiciary Commission, of which she is not a member, to vote for the liberalization of entry visas into the Schengen area for Qatari citizens. When Qatar had, at the last moment, postponed the trip of the parliamentary delegation for relations with the Arabian Peninsula, which wanted to visit the World Cup facilities and review the changes to labor legislation announced by Doha leaders, Kaili had calmly gone to the emirate, where she , received with great fanfare, praising regime reforms and claiming to represent 500 million Europeans. The head of the delegation for the Green MEPs Hannah Neumann said: “I had the feeling that something was happening behind my back. The Qataris invited the parliamentarians because they knew they would take a more balanced position and invited them because they knew what they would say.”
The suitcase and the dad
The credits see a suitcase full of banknotes, 600,000 euros, clumsily carried away by a breathless and protective father from the apartment where the honored MP lived with his Italian companion Francesco Giorgi, former parliamentary assistant to prime suspect Pier Antonio Panzeri. The pretty Eva and the sailing instructor, fit and likeable, were the “glamorous couple” in the plenary hall, according to a former colleague from the Social Democratic Group. Giorgi is also passionate about human rights and has now also been arrested. Beautiful and damn? The presumption of innocence is fine, but socialist MEP Eva Kaili needs more than a few explanations.
December 13, 2022 (change December 13, 2022 | 08:04)
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