Luca Visentini, secretary general of the trade union federation ITUC, has stepped down, The Financial Times reports. The Italian had come under scrutiny when news surfaced that he had taken donations from Pier Antonio Panzeri, a pivotal figure in Qatargate, the corruption scandal that rocked the EU Parliament weeks before.
On December 15th, Visentini had temporarily stepped aside pending a specially convened meeting of ITUC’s General Council scheduled for December 21st. While the organization itself has not yet issued an official press release, Visentini appears to have unilaterally decided to make the decision permanent.
Visentini had been at the head of the organization, which calls itself “the global voice of working people,” for only a month. As late as Monday, December 19th, he confirmed to several media outlets that he had accepted money from Panzeri’s NGO Fight Impunity but had done so with honorable intentions.
According to investigators, however, the NGO served as a cover for an elaborate bribery scheme, intended to influence decision-making within the EU Parliament.
Visentini denied being aware of that. While he admitted to having received a sum of less than €50,000, he said it was intended to reimburse him for expenses incurred during the financing of his campaign for an ITUC congress in Australia.
“I was not asked, neither did I ask anything in exchange for the money and no conditions whatsoever were set for this donation,” he stated, adding that he had transferred the amount to the ITUC solidarity fund to pay for the union’s travel expenses.
As for having accepted the money in cash (and not through more orthodox means for such large amounts), he claimed to think little of it, because of Panzeri’s good reputation and since it came from a non-profit organization. According to Visentini, the donation was “in no way related to an attempt at corruption” nor was it intended to influence his position on Qatar.
In the run-up to the World Cup, he described host nation Qatar as a “success story,” despite having at his disposal years of alarming reports which reflected poorly on its labor conditions, especially concerning the lot of migrant workers tasked with building the World Cup’s infrastructure.
Indeed, the international trade union organization—in sharp contrast to previous statements on the country—from June 2022 onwards suddenly became one of Qatar’s most staunch advocates.
Suspected of corruption as well as being a member of what is now deemed to be Panzeri’s criminal enterprise, the 53-year-old Visentini was among the first people to be arrested by Belgian prosecutors on December 9th. Two days later, he was released without charge on the condition that he alert authorities should he leave the EU in the next three months.
“Everything I did was done in good faith,” Visentini then wrote. “Being involved in this investigation has been a shock for me and my family, and I will do whatever is necessary to clear up the situation and prove my innocence.”
Panzeri, a former socialist MEP, is currently under arrest on suspicion of being the key figure in the Qatargate scandal. His wife, Maria Dolores Colleoni, was arrested in Italy earlier this month, along with her daughter, Silvia Panzeri; both were accused of corruption, money laundering, and criminal association.
A few days ago, Colleoni was cleared for extradition to Belgium where she, presumably together with her husband, will be tried. Her defense was given five days to appeal the case to Italy’s Court of Cassation, the highest court in Italy.
Their daughter will remain under house arrest in Italy and is likely to be tried separately there.
