2023 in EU politics: A tumultuous year, from Qatargate to migration

This tumultuous year in EU politics started with investigations and arrests of MEPs implicated in the Qatargate scandal and ended with lawmakers agreeing on reforms to stiffen the bloc’s migration policies. Still, our most-read story dealt with an issue most Brussels politicos thought had been left behind. 

With no little irony, it was the story that covered the final, desperate appeal brought by British citizens living in the UK and in a handful of EU member states, challenging the Brexit withdrawal agreement on the grounds that it had deprived them of rights they had exercised and acquired as EU citizens.  

That was quashed when the European Court of Justice confirmed that “the loss of the status of citizen of the European Union… is an automatic consequence of the sole sovereign decision taken by the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union, and not of the withdrawal agreement or the Council’s decision.”  

Brexit leaves a bitter taste

The ruling, which did not come as a surprise, confirmed that people from third countries or former member states can only acquire EU citizenship by becoming a citizen of a member country in the bloc.  

Brits cannot keep citizenship rights, EU top court confirms

UK nationals cannot automatically retain rights as EU citizens after Brexit, the EU’s top court confirmed on Thursday (15 June).

The status of Britons still living and working in the EU and their EU counterparts in the UK continues to be one of the most delicate issues in the Brexit process.  

However, EU-UK relations gradually improved over the course of 2023. In February, EU and UK officials finally resolved their long-standing dispute over implementing the Northern Ireland protocol, which governs trade on the island of Ireland and between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. 

They also concluded the UK’s status as an associate member of the Horizon Europe research and development programme that will allow UK scientists and researchers to obtain EU funding for joint projects.  

Less clear is whether the return of former prime minister David Cameron – whose legacy was to take the UK out of the EU by mistake – as Rishi Sunak’s foreign secretary will continue to repair ties between London and Brussels. 

Post-Qatargate 

The arrest in December 2022 of a handful of MEPs and parliamentary assistants and the seizure of €1.5 million in cash shook the EU institutions and shone the light on the often-murky relationships between EU lawmakers and third-country governments. 

One year of 'Qatargate': Investigation going nowhere?

A year after a bribery scandal dubbed “Qatargate” engulfed the European Parliament, Belgium’s investigation into the alleged wrongdoing of certain lawmakers and aides still seems far from resolution.

The Qatargate scandal, which implicated EU lawmakers in seeking to whitewash human rights abuses in Qatar, Morocco and Mauritania, prompted MEPs to re-write their internal rules to have a stricter regime on the access of third country actors and lobbyists in general, to the Parliament.

However, plans for an independent EU ethics body appear unlikely to move ahead. 

Meanwhile, Greek MEP Eva Kaili, her partner Francesco Giorgi, a parliamentary assistant, Belgian MEP Marc Tarabella and Italian Andrea Cozzolino were released from custody in the course of 2023 but face charges including corruption and money laundering. They deny any wrongdoing. 

Former Italian MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, Giorgi’s former boss, confessed to being the ringleader of the scheme as part of a plea deal. The cases are expected to go to trial next year. 

The fact that the suspects in the Qatargate scandal were all socialists saw the centre-right European People’s Party describe the case as a ‘socialist scandal’. 

So the raid by the Belgian police on the EPP’s headquarters in March, in a case unrelated to Qatargate, also prompted a flurry of readers to Euractiv, which was the first to break the news.  

BREAKING: Belgian police raids EPP headquarters in Brussels

The Belgian police raided the headquarters of the European People’s Party (EPP) in Brussels on Tuesday (4 April), a source close to the matter told EURACTIV.com.  

Human tragedy 

While EU lawmakers spent much of this year seeking to tighten the bloc’s immigration and asylum rules, reaching an agreement on five new laws on 20 December, the human tragedy of migration continues to play out in the Mediterranean Sea. 

Euractiv’s Eleonora Vasques spent several weeks reporting from the frontline of Europe’s migration on board the Ocean Viking, including this dispatch detailing how the Libyan coastguard fired multiple times while two boats of the NGO SOS Mediterranée were conducting a rescue of eleven people in distress in international waters. 

Exclusive: Libyans fired at rescuers while performing a rescue at sea

The Libyan coastguard fired multiple times while two boats of the NGO SOS Mediterranée were conducting a rescue of eleven people in distress in international waters on Friday (7 July).

Meanwhile, Euractiv’s exclusive report that Italian authorities disregarded warnings from the EU border and coast agency Frontex that a ship which eventually sank off its coast, resulting in 60 deaths, might be carrying a large number of people served as another painful reminder of the human suffering in Europe’s seas. 

Schengen under attack

The EU’s own internal borders also dominated the headlines and our viewing numbers this year.

Davide Basso and Nikolaus Kurmayer reported on how the growing number of countries that maintain or have re-introduced internal border checks, citing migration or terrorism worries, has led to the Schengen passport-free travel zone being disrupted by a raft of new checks. 

Schengen: How Europe is ruining its ‘crown jewel’

One of Europe’s flagship projects is faltering. The passport-free Schengen area is under a continued assault from a growing number of countries that maintain or have re-introduced internal border checks, citing migration or terrorism worries.

Elsewhere, EU lawmakers agreed on new rules to digitise visa application procedures in the Schengen area. Visas will be issued in digital format, as a 2D barcode, cryptographically signed, in a bid to reduce security risks related to counterfeit and stolen visa stickers. 

2024 will be dominated by the European Parliament elections – where far-right and nationalist parties are expected to make significant but not decisive inroads – and then by the appointment of a new European Commission. Euractiv will be there.

In the meantime, thank you for reading.

[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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