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Qatar warned Sunday that an investigation by authorities in Brussels into its role in an alleged influence and bribery scheme could adversely affect energy talks with Europe and condemned a decision by the European Parliament to suspend dealings with the Persian Gulf kingdom.
The European Parliament’s move “will negatively effect regional and global security cooperation, as well as ongoing discussions around global energy poverty and security,” a statement by a Qatari diplomat to the European Union said Sunday, noting that Qatar is an important supplier of liquefied natural gas to Belgium.
The legislative body last week voted in favor of a resolution calling for representatives of Qatari interests to have their security passes suspended. A Parliament official said Sunday that no decision has been made on banning Qatari representatives and the legislative body is reviewing its rules on representatives of foreign governments and nongovernmental organizations.
Since the war in Ukraine broke out, Qatar has emerged as one of Europe’s best hopes for weaning itself off Russian natural gas. Germany, France, Belgium and Italy have been in talks with Qatar to buy LNG on a long-term basis.
But the Qatari statement, which didn’t identify the diplomat, marked a sharp escalation in the brewing influence-peddling scandal, one that threatened to spiral into a clash with broader diplomatic and economic ramifications.
Belgian police detained two EU lawmakers and several other people linked to the European Parliament over suspicions that they accepted hundreds of thousands of euros from Qatari officials to influence the legislature’s decisions. Police have staged raids in Belgium and Italy, in what threatens to become the biggest scandal in Brussels in years.
One of the European Parliament members detained in an alleged influence and bribery scheme is Eva Kaili, a Greek lawmaker, people familiar with the case said.
Photo:
Eurokinissi/Zuma Press
The Gulf kingdom reiterated Sunday that it wasn’t involved in the alleged influence peddling and blamed what it called preconceived prejudices for the Parliament vote Thursday to freeze legislation involving Qatar and to request that Qatari officials be barred from its premises.
A spokeswoman for the European Parliament declined to comment on the Qatari statement on Sunday.
“Qatar was not the only party named in the investigation, yet our country has been exclusively criticised and attacked,” the statement said. “It is deeply disappointing that the Belgian government made no effort to engage with our government to establish the facts once they became aware of the allegations.”
Qatar has been selling natural gas super-chilled into liquid form—a process used for shipping the fuel—to China, South Korea, Japan and other Asian consumers on long-term contracts, helping the country of less than three million people become one of the largest exporters of gas.
Qatar agreed last month to send Germany two million tons of liquefied natural gas a year for at least 15 years, starting in 2026, in a deal with U.S. energy major ConocoPhillips. The volume would cover around 3% of Germany’s 2021 annual gas consumption.
The European Union successfully filled its gas storage tanks ahead of winter, and many analysts say the continent might avoid an energy calamity this winter. But procuring gas for coming winters is widely anticipated to become more difficult for European countries now that they are mostly cut off from Russian supplies and global competition is growing for finite cargoes of liquefied natural gas.
“Qatar has strong and longstanding ties with many countries in the European Union, and we extend our gratitude to those who have demonstrated their commitment to these relationships during this current wave of attacks against our country,” the statement by the Qatari diplomat said.
One of the European Parliament members detained is
Eva Kaili,
a Greek lawmaker and the vice president of the center-left political grouping, the Socialists & Democrats group, people familiar with the case said.
Ms. Kaili’s lawyer said in a statement last week that she is innocent and that money found in the home she shares with her partner “exclusively concerns her partner.”
Ms. Kaili’s position as vice president was terminated last week and she was expelled from Pasok, the Greek political party to which she has belonged, and from the Socialists & Democrats group.
“For several months, investigators of the Federal Judicial Police have suspected a Gulf country of influencing the economic and political decisions of the European Parliament,” a statement from the prosecutor’s office said earlier this month. It said the alleged influence campaign was conducted through the payment of large sums of money and large gifts to people in political or strategic positions.
The prosecutor’s office said last week that police found a total of 600,000 euros at the home of a suspect, several hundred thousand euros in a suitcase in a Brussels hotel room, and about 150,000 euros in an apartment belonging to an EU lawmaker.
European Parliament lawmakers generally have immunity from prosecution unless the body votes to drop it. The immunity doesn’t apply, however, if they are caught in a criminal act.
In a recent speech in Parliament, Ms. Kaili extolled Qatar’s record as the soccer World Cup host, saying it had put its alleged human-rights problems behind it.
“The World Cup is proof actually of how sports diplomacy can achieve a historical transformation of a country with reforms that inspired the Arab world,” she said. “I alone said that Qatar is a front-runner in labor rights.”
—Kim Mackrael contributed to this article.
Write to David S. Cloud at david.cloud@wsj.com
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