EU Corruption Probe: Morocco Denies Involvement as Investigation Continues

"Let’s not forget that at this stage there are allegations but no proof, no concluded investigation. No one has officially said from a judicial point of view that Morocco as a country is guilty and that it should be avoided in international contacts," the spokesman for Josep Borrell, Peter Stano, had declared.

In the alleged corruption scandal in the European Parliament involving Qatar that broke out in December, Morocco was cited by the Italian Francesco Giorgi, the companion of the Greek socialist MEP Eva Kaili. After the arrest of the latter, he told the investigators that he had collaborated with an organization whose services had been requested by Morocco and Qatar in order to influence certain affairs in Europe. Other members of the European Parliament have followed suit.

This is what led to the complaint filed for defamation in December in Paris against the former French Green MP José Bové, who claimed that Aziz Akhannouch, the current Moroccan Prime Minister, had tried to bribe him in the margins of the negotiations of a trade agreement in the early 2010s.