Introducing Untold: Power For Sale

Introducing Power for Sale, a new season of Untold from the Financial Times. In Untold: Power for Sale, host Valentina Pop and a team of FT correspondents from all over Europe investigate what happened in the Qatargate scandal, where EU lawmakers were accused of accepting payments from Qatar to whitewash its image.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
I remember where I was when the news broke. I
was watching the World Cup when a Belgian news alert
popped on my phone. It was a Friday in Brussels,

(00:41):
December twenty two, vice.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
President of the European Parliament has been arrested.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
It's a series of raids on properties across.

Speaker 4 (00:49):
Russells, a senior member of the European Parliament, and three
EU officials have been charged with corruption, money laundering and
participating in a criminal organization.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
The alerts were shocking offices, sealed computers, seized, lawmakers, their
families and staffers jailed.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Prosecutors have searched sixteen houses and seized six one hundred
and thirty one eight hundred dollars in Brussels as part
of the probe. They reportedly found bags of cash.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Never before had there been anything like this at the
European Parliament.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Several people accused of receiving money and gifts from a
Gulf state. The state in question is widely reported to
be cut up.

Speaker 4 (01:29):
She was, you know, this very innocent character who was
maybe manipulated by some of the other suspects.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Money is not illegal, it depends how did you get them.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
What ford there must be culturally something very wrong if
you consider this to be.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
Normal, because it was a slave state, that workers were
going to die in their thousands a coup.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
Boys like the things, Yeah, exactly, Make no mistake. The
European Parliament is under attack, European democracy is under attack,
and our way of open, free democratic societies are under attack.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Elections are coming up for the European Parliament. But the
scandal has been like a gateway opening up to bigger
and bigger questions. Was there a corruption ring? Have EU
lawmakers been bribed by foreign powers? Is the European Parliament
for sale? And Valentin a pop and from the Financial

(02:30):
Times this is untold power for sale coming May twenty
ninth