Eva Kaili (44) sits cross-legged on a leather armchair in a hotel bar in Zug, her long blond hair falling over the red scarf the MEP has wrapped tightly around her neck. March in Central Switzerland: This is not the ideal meteorological environment for the Greek woman from Thessaloniki, who loves to cruise around the Aegean Sea with her Italian partner and marvel at the architectural masterpieces in the Arabian Peninsula.
But Kaili, then just 39 in the spring of 2018 and already a celebrated political star in her home country, puts aside the frustration of the Zug-cold and says many nice things in an interview with the broadcaster CNN Money Switzerland. Things she says over and over in many interviews. She talks about “smart solutions”, about “new approaches”, about the “benefits of digitization for citizens”.
Eva Kaili knows how to talk smart. And she knows how to captivate the audience. She often turns her face to the right and presents the left chocolate side. Just like on her Insta profile, where she shares her politically driven jet set life with a whopping 54,500 followers.
Already active in politics as a teenager
That is all over for the time being: with the interviews, with the politicizing, with the jet-set life anyway. Eva Kaili has been in a Belgian prison since last Friday. The former vice-president of the European Parliament is suspected of accepting several hundred thousand Swiss francs from Qatar for her political services. It is the biggest corruption scandal to date in the anything but scandal-free history of the 705-member European Parliament.
An unexpected hard end to the flying career of the trained architect and talented politician; a deep fall for the powerful Greek, who once joined the left-wing party Pasok at the age of 14 and was elected to the city council of Thessaloniki at the age of 20. Kaili earned her living as a newsreader for Greek private television station Mega TV before reaching the national parliament at the age of 26, eventually moving to the European Parliament in Strasbourg in 2014.
Eva Kaili has to cancel another trip to Switzerland
There she met her current partner, Francesco Giorgi (35), who worked as an assistant to another MEP. The attractive power duo Giorgi and Kaili, already chosen by “Politico” as the “Brussels dream couple Brangelina”, have a daughter together. Last week, the Belgian authorities found about 160,000 euros in cash under their beds. The girl is currently being cared for by someone else: both parents are in custody.
Papa Francesco now claims the alleged bribery scandal is his fault. Mama Eva wouldn’t have known about it. The Belgian authorities do not seem to believe him. In any case, Kaili had to cancel her upcoming travel plans. In January, she reportedly returned to Switzerland to perform at a crypto event in St. Moritz. The organizers did not invite them. The party is over – not just for the blockchain currencies.