[The Critic] Qatargate Is a Feature — Not a Bug — of the EU

Brussels is the seat of too much unaccountable power not to produce scandals of this very nature.

Ever since coming into its own, sometime in the 1990s, as a supranational arena distinct from the domestic fray of its member-states, the European Union (EU) has accustomed its conservative critics to sporadic bursts of outrage without much of a surprise factor. Emmanuel Macron eyes abortion as a fundamental right the bloc should guarantee? He reasons a sexual liberation crusade may help break the present deadlock of European integration. The Commission invokes dubious rule-of-law grounds to pare back Hungary’s share of the Covid-19 recovery fund? An internal enemy is of the essence when the fund’s net contributors up their payout. The Qatargate scandal unfolding as of this writing — with six suspects detained, €1.5 million in cash seized and a senior lawmaker stripped of her assignments — is the latest instalment in this saga: no doubt an enormity, but an entirely predictable one at that. As such, it should be read dispassionately.

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