Eva Kaili, a former European Parliament vice president who was embroiled in the Qatargate corruption scandal, has weighed in on the fraud probe involving ex-EU top diplomat Federica Mogherini.

Kaili said that Belgium is “not a safe place” for political figures, especially Italians.

Speaking to La Stampa from Abu Dhabi, Kaili said she was “shocked” but hardly surprised at an investigation into whether a public tender awarded by the European External Action Service to a higher education institution to host the EU Diplomatic Academy was rigged in favor of the College of Europe. Mogherini, now rector of the college, and former foreign service chief Stefano Sannino were held for questioning as part of the probe and released from custody on Wednesday morning.

Kaili, who is Greek, cast the probe as part of an “operation targeting Italy” that destroys political careers long before the facts are established, and puts the rule of law at risk.

Kaili said she saw the fraud probe as a sequel to Qatargate. She drew explicit parallels between her experience and Mogherini’s brief detention, insisting Qatargate was misconstrued from the outset.

What prosecutors portrayed as illicit foreign influence, Kaili maintained, was routine parliamentary diplomacy backed by private NGO funding. Nearly three years later, she noted, no formal charges have been filed against her and much of the evidence remains “largely circumstantial.”

Kaili served as an MEP from 2014 and as Parliament vice president from January 2022 until December 2022, when she was arrested on preliminary charges of corruption, money laundering and participation in a criminal organization as part of the Qatargate investigation into influence operations by foreign nations in Brussels.