The Cathargate corruption scandal that has rocked the European Parliament is "dramatic and damaging to confidence in the European Union" and is making it difficult for Brussels to deal with multiple competitive crises, European Council President Charles Michel has said.

Charles Michel - Belgian politician and prime minister of the country. Charles Michel was born on December 21, 1975 in an exclusive interview for Politico.

Michel said he was deeply troubled by allegations of criminal association and money laundering and corruption brought by Belgian police against current and former members of the European Parliament in recent days.

"First of all we have to learn from this and propose a package of measures to avoid this kind of thing - to prevent corruption in the future," said Michel, a former Belgian prime minister who is now in his second term as chairman of European Council. 

But the scandal "makes it even more difficult for us to focus on the economic and energy crises that are affecting the lives of European citizens right now," he said.

Belgian police arrested several people, including Greek MEP Eva Kaili and her Italian partner Francesco Giorgi, as well as Italian former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri and Nicolo Figa-Talamanca, secretary general of a group fighting for the rule of law.

Police also sealed off numerous offices in Parliament and seized at least €1.5 million in cash following a year-long Europe-wide investigation into alleged corruption and money laundering.

Eva Kylie has made partial confessions

The affair, which happened just as the World Cup in Qatar reached its crescendo, cemented the image of the oil kingdom as a malevolent meddling power and the EU as a bleak playground for corrupt, entitled and complacent Eurocrats.

"In the last year, the EU has been in the headlines of the world's newspapers only a few times - for example, when we banned the internal combustion engine, and now with this corruption scandal," complained to Politico Valerie Haier, a French MEP from President Emmanuel's party Macron.

Michel admitted that the average European hardly differentiates between the three big branches of the EU - the European Parliament, the European Council, which it leads, and the European Commission, which serves as the executive branch and proposes legislation.

The taint of the scandal will complicate his job as he seeks to "renew the EU's wedding vows" in the new year and tries to tackle a number of issues he has described as "existential for the European project".

Among them are negotiations with the United States over the subsidy program under the Inflation Reduction Act, which has worried European leaders because of its relative economic competitiveness.

If Europe fails to offer an adequate response in the coming weeks, then it risks "fragmentation of the single market", Michel said.

He said the other big problem facing Europe is "over-dependence on China and the pressure that China is putting on us".

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