Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Sunday, Sep 14, 2025

Greece’s ex-EU commissioner says NGO in graft scandal paid him €60,000 last year

Greece’s ex-EU commissioner says NGO in graft scandal paid him €60,000 last year

Former migration chief Dimitris Avramopoulos resigned from the ‘Fight Impunity’ group as soon as the scandal broke.
Greece’s former European Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos said Monday he was paid €60,000 between February 2021 and February 2022 by a nongovernmental organization at the heart of a snowballing corruption scandal in Brussels.

The NGO Fight Impunity was founded by ex-Italian MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, who has been arrested and charged with corruption in a case hinging on whether Qatar and Morocco bought influence in the European Parliament.

“My involvement in ‘Fight Impunity’ was from the beginning completely without executive or management responsibilities,” the former commissioner said in a statement to the Greek state news agency AMNA, responding to reports in La Stampa and El Mundo.

Former EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, former French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, Italian Senator Emma Bonino and former MEP Cecilia Wikström were also all listed as members of an “Honorary Board” of Fight Impunity. So is MEP Isabel Santos. They’ve all quit the board in the wake of allegations against Panzeri.

Cazeneuve said he was not paid for his involvement and reiterated that he had no involvement in the NGO beyond accepting joining the honorary board. A representative for Mogherini said she also had received no payment.

The think tank was not listed in the official transparency register of lobbyists.

Avramopoulos said he received permission from the Independent Ethical Committee of the European Commission on December 10, 2020 to take up the position and received a declared honorarium between February 2021 and February 2022 of some €60,000. He said he received a monthly payment of €5,000, which was declared and taxed in Greece, in accordance with Greek law. His monthly net income was €3,750.

“In February 2022, because the activity of the organization had waned, I requested and stopped the compensation. From March onwards, my participation had effectively ended,” Avramopoulos said.

“As soon as I was informed of what happened recently in Brussels, I immediately and irrevocably tendered my resignation and asked for my name to be removed from the website, together with the other personalities who participated in the committee,” he added.

Avramopoulos — along with former Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, former Cypriot Commissioner Markos Kyprianou and former Slovak Foreign Minister Jan Kubiš — is one of the contenders for the post of the EU special representative for the Gulf region.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Did the Houthis disrupt the internet in the Middle East? Submarine cables cut in the Red Sea
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Iran Faces Escalating Water Crisis as Protests Spread
More Than Half a Million Evacuated as Typhoon Kajiki Heads for Vietnam
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Cristiano Ronaldo Makes Surprise Stop at New Hong Kong Museum
Zelenskyy to Visit Washington after Trump–Putin Summit Yields No Agreement
High-Stakes Trump-Putin Summit on Ukraine Underway in Alaska
Iranian Protection Offers Chinese Vehicle Shipments a Cost Advantage over Japanese and Korean Makers
Saudi Arabia accelerates renewables to curb domestic oil use
Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez announce engagement
Asia-Pacific dominates world’s busiest flight routes, with South Korea’s Jeju–Seoul corridor leading global rankings
Private Welsh island with 19th-century fort listed for sale at over £3 million
Sam Altman challenges Elon Musk with plans for Neuralink rival
Australia to Recognize the State of Palestine at UN Assembly
The Collapse of the Programmer Dream: AI Experts Now the Real High-Earners
Armenia and Azerbaijan to Sign US-Brokered Framework Agreement for Nakhchivan Corridor
British Labour Government Utilizes Counter-Terrorism Tools for Social Media Monitoring Against Legitimate Critics
WhatsApp Deletes 6.8 Million Scam Accounts Amid Rising Global Fraud
Nine people have been hospitalized and dozens of salmonella cases have been reported after an outbreak of infections linked to certain brands of pistachios and pistachio-containing products, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada
Texas Residents Face Water Restrictions While AI Data Centers Consume Millions of Gallons
Tariffs, AI, and the Shifting U.S. Macro Landscape: Navigating a New Economic Regime
India Rejects U.S. Tariff Threat, Defends Russian Oil Purchases
United States Establishes Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile
Thousands of Private ChatGPT Conversations Accidentally Indexed by Google
China Tightens Mineral Controls, Curtailing Critical Inputs for Western Defence Contractors
OpenAI’s Bold Bet: Teaching AI to Think, Not Just Chat
BP’s Largest Oil and Gas Find in 25 Years Uncovered Offshore Brazil
×