Debate: Corruption and human rights
Date: TUESDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2022
Speaker: Katalin Cseh
Country: Sweden
Language: EN

Putin has spent 20 years freely stashing his money in the West, and now he feels like he can do anything. We need to show him and the other authoritarian criminals that this is not the case and he cannot. Because just think about what’s happening here – authoritarian regimes are robbing their own people, squeezing resources from them, trashing their human rights and then they take this money to buy luxury property in Italy or art in Paris or company assets in Frankfurt. And when a journalist writes about it, then expensive lawyers just show up to muzzle them.  All this is profoundly immoral – immoral and against everything Europe stands for. This is also a slap in the face for those people who suffer from authoritarian repression and, yes, also a slap in the face for every Ukrainian who is terrified of a devastating war.  But we have real power here. We have real leverage because Putin relies on access to Europe. He needs to keep his oligarchs happy with their yacht parties in our ports and their money stashed in our banks. We need to use this leverage now.  So, in this report, we call for a more effective sanctions framework against oligarchs. We also call for stricter due diligence and transparency in sectors such as finance and real estate – because let’s face it, this is where shady money finds their way into the legitimate economy. And we also call for financial support and legal protection for activists, whistleblowers and journalists who are our strongest allies in this fight and who should never be silenced or intimidated by autocrats and the oligarchs who they investigate. We have to use our leverage and we have to purge tainted money out of the EU once and for all.  So, let’s face it, there is a very clear divide emerging in this Parliament. The pro-European centre wants to stand up against the growing influence of Russia or China, while the far right, unfortunately led by the Orbáns, the Le Pens and the Salvinis are actively blocking it.  Hungary’s Foreign Minister, Péter Szijjártó, for instance, he keeps saying that the EU should lift even the existing sanctions regime on Russia and that sanctions don’t work. Well, I have to say this is the only way to show that actually they do work because no surprise that Putin’s Trojan horses are campaigning against them. Opaque business dealings can always count in the background. So we are calling for the EU to very thoroughly monitor this. We have to look into the financial ties between the Kremlin and the far-right parties, and we have to scrutinise large-scale investment projects financed by Moscow or Beijing.  Russia, for instance, is building a nuclear power plant in Hungary, a EUR 12.5 billion project awarded without a public tender. China is involved in a grand railway construction project and in the building of the Fudan University’s Budapest Campus. Billions of euros and the terms and conditions of these projects are classified for decades. No means to scrutinise how this money is being spent and the oligarchs connected to the Prime Minister are carving out their own slice.  For most of the time, the EU has been passively watching on the sidelines, watching this creeping influence, despite repeated warnings about security risks that might be entailed. So it’s time to put an end to this. This set of recommendations shows a clear way how.