Federica Mogherini, then the EU foreign policy chief, in Brussels, February 26, 2018. VIRGINIA MAYO / AP
Months have gone by and scandals have continued to shake European institutions. After "Qatargate," which hit the European Parliament in late 2022, both the European External Action Service (EEAS, the EU's diplomatic service, currently led by Kaja Kallas) and the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium – a "private foundation of public interest" that has trained Europe's elite civil servants since 1949 – were searched under warrant on the morning of Tuesday, December 2. The Bruges federal police acted at the request of the Belgian branch of the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), an independent body based in Luxembourg, charged with protecting the European Union budget and prosecuting those responsible for serious offenses.
According to several Brussels-based sources, three people were taken into police custody and had their diplomatic immunity lifted: Federica Mogherini, current rector of the College of Europe in Bruges and former EU foreign policy chief as well as vice president of the European Commission from 2014 to 2019; Stefano Sannino, former secretary general of the EEAS; and a manager at the College of Europe in Bruges, an adviser to the rector. The college's communications director was "unreachable" on Tuesday.
