This deputy, Eva Kaili, belonged to the Greek socialist party Pasok. She was vice-president of the European Parliament – ​​and she had strongly promoted Qatar.

Kaili has now been stripped of her title and is in custody. Of course, this is far from the first corruption scandal in the EU.

But in this case, there is the promise of grim new revelations of money-fueled influence peddling on a much larger scale than previously thought.

And now the race is on to assign blame.

Some lawmakers suggest that malicious foreign interference is primarily responsible. Others say non-governmental organizations and campaign groups should be in the crosshairs.

Still others point out that there will always be bad apples and therefore there should be no collective guilt in a parliament of 705 members.

But such a pointing finger is mostly tantamount to denial and deflection. This is because the burning of the dumpster in the European Parliament may be largely blamed on the EU.

Foreign governments can still encounter largely undetected lawmakers, and there is still no central independent investigator and no system for anonymous whistleblowers.

This is what Transparency International calls a complete lack of independent ethics oversight.

And while the EU has many gifted politicians and decision-makers who are above reproach, too many are still low-level national party hacks and worse.

One of the main voices for making the EU more accountable and transparent is Alberto Alemano. Alberto is Jean Monnet Professor of European Union Law at HEC Paris and sits on the board of directors of several civil society organisations. It’s also a good sport to ride a scooter in the city center of Brussels, in the dark, on a freezing evening, to come and talk, yes, about “Qatargate”.