Adrian Severin, one of the guilty, presented an invoice for payment of his bribe.
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On the front page of the Sunday Times you will see the headline ‘Euro MPs exposed in ‘cash-for-laws’ scandal’ (£). Journalists from the lauded Insight investigative team posed as financial lobbyists and approached MEPs offering them large sums of money in return for weakening banking reform legislation.
Three MEPs took the bait and were employed by the fake lobbying company on a yearly salary of €100,000. One of those was 56 year old former Romanian deputy prime minister, Adrian Severin, who apparently emailed the journalists posing as lobbyists writing “Just to let you know that the amendment desired by you has been tabled in due time”. He then sent an invoice for €12,000.
The other two MEPs caught up in the scandal was Slovenian foreign minister Zoran Thaler, and former Austrian interior minister Ernst Strasser. It is said that Ernst additionally boasted about serving at least five commercial clients who each paid him €100,000 per year.
These are pretty shocking revelations. But the most telling quote in the Sunday Times expose comes from Adrian Severin, "I didn’t do anything that was, let’s say, illegal or against any normal behaviour we have here."
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