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The Belgian prosecutors are now talking about the “Italian job” and the “Italy connection”: This is because no less than 8 of the 19 suspects in the dark affair about alleged bribes from Qatar and apparently also from Morocco have Italian passports.

Arrested former MEP Antonio Panzeri is said to have been the head of the gang. About his human rights organization “Fight Impunity” – how ironic this announcement against “impunity” suddenly sounds! – A large part of the money would have flowed with which the governments of Qatar and Morocco wanted to influence the decisions of the European Parliament.

“We are decent people,” say the comrades in Italy

The members of the “Italy Connection” not only have an Italian passport, they also have or had a membership card of the social-democratic Partito Democratico.

For the credibility and story of the party, which usually sees corruption, tax evasion and mafia activities as problems for the right-wing political opponent, the “Qatar Gate” is the worst misfortune that can be assumed. Can leftists and trade unionists accept money from a regime that endured the deaths of countless workers to build its World Cup stadiums? Are founders of human rights organizations allowed to lobby for countries where the same human rights are violated? These and similar – rhetorical – questions are currently being asked by the left-liberal newspaper “La Repubblica”.

The party leaders seem paralyzed by the scandal in their own ranks. Party leader and former Prime Minister Enrico Letta admitted at a protest rally against the draft budget of the Meloni government that the scandal would damage his partito. ‘But we are decent people. And we demand that those responsible for this mess be punished,” Letta explained helplessly.

Otherwise, Letta was monosyllabic about the scandal. Former Health Minister Roberto Speranza said he was “deeply outraged” by the corruption and double standards exposed in Brussels. The “Repubblica” added: “Yes, and the voters are even more so.”

So divided that even a split in the party threatens

The image tsunami from Brussels comes at an inopportune time for the Italian left: the party has been in turmoil since the September 25 elections, in which a post-fascist group became the strongest party for the first time in the history of the republic and Giorgia Meloni is now head of government a crisis of meaning. Because the quarrels among the left have contributed significantly to the fact that the right-wing parties now have a clear absolute majority in parliament, even though they only obtained 43 percent of the vote together.

The own goal continues to work, party leader Enrico Letta will step down in February. A dispute has arisen over the choice of his successor – in the worst case scenario, a new split in the party is imminent.