Belgian Prosecutors Probe Moroccan Ambassador in EU Parliament Corruption Scandal

Abderrahim Atmoun is cited in the corruption scandal rocking the European Parliament. He would be involved in a network of bribes to parliamentarians that the Belgian prosecutor’s office is investigating, reports the daily Le Soir.be. He owes his diplomatic successes, notably the agricultural and fisheries agreements that Rabat has negotiated with Brussels and the support of certain MEPs for the autonomy plan presented by Morocco to resolve the dispute around the Sahara, to this network. A deputy from 2016 to 2019, he was co-chairman of the joint Morocco-EU parliamentary committee, created in 2010 for the period 2011 to 2019.

During his term, he befriended Pier Antonio Panzeri, a former trade unionist and former left-wing MEP, now suspected of having "politically intervened with European deputies in favor of Qatar and Morocco, in exchange for payment." The two men regularly met as co-chairs of a body for exchanges between the European and Moroccan Parliaments. The Moroccan diplomat is said to have given him gifts. The former left-wing MEP made a trip to Morocco in 2013, where he visited the Moroccan diplomat in the company of Marc Tarabella.

For now, the Moroccan diplomat has not yet reacted to the corruption allegations against him.