Brussels, May 17th, 2018 – Former Portuguese Member of European Parliament Paulo Casaca has requested that the EU Anti-Fraud Office in Brussels immediately initiate a formal investigation into alleged bribery of senior European politicians during the international negotiations which led to the signing of the nuclear agreement with Iran in 2015. Casaca broke the news in the ECI-hosted talk show European Report from the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday. In this month’s show, panellists Simon Barrett, MEP Branislav Škripek, ECI Founding Director Tomas Sandell and Paulo Casaca were discussing recent developments in the Middle East, including the US decision last week to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. European Coalition for Israel and Paulo Casaca have long been critical of the agreement, which they believe failed to contain Iran´s nuclear ambitions and did not prevent the Iranian regime from causing further instability in the region by being the number one state sponsor of international terrorism.
The request comes after Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mr Hassan Ghashghavi, according to international media sources, had stated that “If Europeans stop trading with Iran and don’t put pressure on US then we will reveal which western politicians and how much money they had received during nuclear negotiations to make the Iran deal happen”.
On Tuesday, 15th May, the European leaders received the Foreign Affairs Minister of Iran, Mr H.J.Ansari Zarif. Neither Mr Zarif nor the European leaders retracted the serious accusations produced by Mr. Ghashghavi.
In the European Report program, ECI director Sandell condemned the biased media campaign against Israel over the Gaza violence, which leaves out information vital for understanding the nature of the conflict which has already claimed over 60 casualties, among them 50 Hamas operatives but also innocent civilians.
-Europe cannot turn a blind eye to Hamas’ cynical use of children and women as human shields in their attack against Israel in order to get maximum media attention in the West. What makes the matter even worse is the fact that the European Union is the main institutional funder of the Palestinian textbooks used in Gaza which give legitimacy to martyrdom and encourage young children to jihadism.
-If the European Union is to be a union of values, we have to hold Hamas responsible for the latest waves of violence. As much as we mourn every innocent life that is lost in this tragic battle, we have to respect the right of the state of Israel to defend its borders against any intrusion or attacks from a regime which in their very charter has vowed to eliminate the Jewish state, Sandell concluded.
Slovak MEP Branislav Škripek reminded the audience of the lack of respect for minorities in the whole Middle East region, where Christian and other religious minorities have been ethnically cleansed from part of the region, and where Palestinians have been targeted and killed in Syria without any outcry from the international community.