A Milan criminal court on Wednesday acquitted Italian fashion influencer and businesswoman Chiara Ferragni of aggravated fraud in the so-called Pandorogate scandal. The case, one of Italy’s most high-profile celebrity trials, centered on allegations of misleading advertising linked to the promotion of the sweet pandoro Christmas bread — luxury sugar-dusted brioches — in 2022 and Easter eggs sold in 2021 and 2022. Prosecutors, who had requested a 20-month prison sentence, argued that consumers had been led to believe their purchases would support charitable causes, when donations had in fact already been made and were not tied to sales. Ferragni denied any wrongdoing throughout the proceedings. Judge Ilio Mannucci rejected the aggravating circumstance cited by prosecutors, reclassifying the charge as simple fraud, according to ANSA. Under Italian law, that requires a formal complaint to proceed. But because the consumer group Codacons had withdrawn its complaint last year after reaching a compensation agreement with Ferragni, the judge dismissed the case. The ruling also applies to her co-defendants, including her former close aide Fabio Damato, and Cerealitalia Chairman Francesco Cannillo. “We are all very moved,” Ferragni said outside the Milan courtroom after the verdict. “I thank everyone, my lawyers and my followers.” The scandal began in late 2023, when Ferragni partnered with confectioner Balocco to market a limited-edition pandoro to support cancer research. But Balocco had already donated a fixed €50,000 months earlier, while Ferragni’s companies earned more than €1 million from the campaign. The competition authorities fined Ferragni and Balocco more than €1.4 million, and last year, Milan prosecutors charged Ferragni with aggravated fraud for allegedly generating false expectations among buyers. Ferragni and her then-husband and rapper Fedez used to be Italy’s most politically influential Instagram couple, championing progressive causes, campaigning for LGBTQ+ rights and positioning themselves against the country’s traditionalist Catholic mainstream, often drawing sharp criticism from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the Italian right. Since the scandal erupted in December 2023, however, that cultural and political empire has unraveled: the couple divorced, Ferragni retreated from public life, and Fedez reemerged in increasingly right-leaning political circles. Wednesday’s acquittal closes a legal chapter that had sparked intense political and media scrutiny, triggered regulatory fines and fueled a broader debate in Italy over influencer marketing, charity and consumer protection.

The downfall of Italy’s most politically influential Instagram couple — in a fraud scandal over sales of sweet pandoro Christmas bread — is gripping the nation, and there have been walk-on roles for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her deputy, Matteo Salvini. Chiara Ferragni, once the face of Italian fashion on social media and a darling of the left, faces a potential jail term this week, over the so-called “Pandorogate” scandal. She is accused of misleading consumers in 2023 by promoting sales of luxury sugar-dusted brioches, whose inflated prices were supposed to support sick children. Her trial began in a Milan courtroom in late November, with a verdict expected on Jan. 14. Prosecutors have requested a 20-month prison sentence. Ferragni strongly denies any wrongdoing. “Everything we have done, we have done in good faith, none of us has profited,” she told the courtroom on Nov. 25. Her ex-husband, rapper-turned-activist Federico Lucia, known as Fedez, was not charged in the scandal, but their marriage has collapsed under public scrutiny and he has made an eye-catching lurch to engaging the political right. Before the trial even began, the case was political. The glamorous couple had been famous for taking on progressive causes, pitting themselves against the more traditionalist Catholic mainstream. They tackled discrimination, campaigned for LGBTQ+ rights and raised funds for intensive-care units during the Covid pandemic. As soon as the scandal broke, conservative Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was quick to single out Ferragni as the wrong kind of role model. “The real role models … are not influencers who make loads of money promoting expensive panettoni that are supposedly for charity,” Meloni said from the stage at the 2023 Atreju gathering of Italy’s far right. Chiara Ferragni and her husband Federico Leonardo Lucia, during the 76th Venice Film Festival on September 4, 2019 at Venice Lido. | Alberto Pizzoli/AFP via Getty Images Months later, in 2024, Meloni introduced a bill — now dubbed the Ferragni law — that directly targets influencers suspected of misleading their fan base with glitzy marketing promotions. The proposed legislation is not the legal basis for Ferragni’s prosecution, which falls under existing consumer protection and fraud laws, but it was widely interpreted as a political response to the scandal bearing her name. By contrast, Meloni’s deputy, Salvini from the League party, came to Ferragni’s defense, saying he was “shocked” by the “malice and rancor” directed at the influencer and her family. Indeed, a bond now seems to be building between Fedez and Salvini in the aftermath of Pandoro-gate. Once a progressive provocateur and outspoken critic of Italy’s far right, Fedez has more recently appeared alongside right-wing figures, invited League hardliner Roberto Vannacci onto his podcast and attended the youth congress of the conservative Forza Italia party. In his memoir, he even praises Salvini for being among the few public figures who checked in regularly during the difficult period following his divorce. “He was the only one who showed me true empathy. And this despite the fact that we had very different ideas and we said all sorts about each other in the past,” he wrote. POLITICO reached out to both Ferragni’s company Chiara Ferragni Brand and her lawyers as well as to Fedez’s PR agency for comments, but received no response. MILLENNIAL EMPIRE Before the courtroom drama, Ferragni, 38, and Fedez, 36, spent a decade assembling something unique in Italian public life: A millennial empire that blended fashion, entrepreneurship, activism and entertainment into a single, highly lucrative influence machine. Ferragni, a former law student, launched the blog The Blonde Salad with her then-partner in 2009. By 2016, it had evolved into a lifestyle magazine and e-commerce platform, selling Ferragni-designed stilettos, luggage and sweatshirts with her well-known sardonic eye logo embroidered across the chest. Luxury houses took notice. She moved from the blogsphere to the front rows of fashion weeks, securing lucrative partnerships and becoming a Harvard Business School case study. Fedez’s path was different. He was a master “at intercepting the cultural changes in Italy,” said Francesco Oggiano, a journalist and expert in digital and political communication. Already established as a rapper in the early 2010s, Fedez reinvented himself as a political firebrand. He publicly challenged Meloni, wrote the official song for the populist Five Star Movement in 2014 and used televised appearances at the Sanremo song contest to criticize right-wing politicians. He was loud, combative, and comfortable mixing his celebrity with activism. Ferragni moved from the blogsphere to the front rows of fashion weeks, securing lucrative partnerships and becoming a Harvard Business School case study. | Donato Fasano/Getty Images When Ferragni and Fedez met in 2016, their relationship quickly became a shared brand. Their 2018 wedding was a sponsorship-saturated media event. Their home life played out as a meticulously crafted and very glitzy reality show followed by millions. And it worked. “Italy has always been an orphan of royal couples,” Oggiano explained. The country “deluded itself that [Ferragni and Fedez] were the perfect couple” and helped build their myth by following their every move. They threw their weight behind the Zan bill, a proposed law to protect people from violence and discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and disabilities that never saw the light of day. They also used their platform to amplify the Malika case, in support of a young woman kicked out of her home by her family for loving another woman; and raised millions for intensive-care units during the Covid pandemic. The duo became a kind of soft-power project, offering an outlet for a millennial Italy opposed to traditional nationalist and Catholic frameworks. They weren’t politicians, but their influence rivaled that of politicians grappling with a changing media landscape. SUGARY SCANDAL The couple’s progressive politics made “Pandorogate” a spectacular fall from grace. In late 2023, Ferragni partnered with confectioner Balocco to market a pink-boxed, limited-edition pandoro to support Turin’s Regina Margherita children’s hospital. The message was simple: Buy the pandoro to support cancer research. But the arrangement was not tied to sales. As journalist Selvaggia Lucarelli first revealed, Balocco had already donated a fixed €50,000 months earlier, while Ferragni received a commercial fee for the campaign. Even the hospital initially misunderstood how the promotion worked. Italy’s Competition Authority (AGCM) later confirmed those findings, concluding that packaging, press releases and social-media posts created the misleading impression that consumers were directly supporting the charity. In reality, no share of sales was donated, while Ferragni’s companies earned more than €1 million from the campaign. Chiara Ferragni, charged for aggravated fraud in a case linked to a Pandoro charity initiative, leaves the courthouse of Milan after a preliminary hearing, in Milan on November 4, 2025. | Piero Cruciatii/AFP via Getty Images The competition authorities fined Ferragni and Balocco more than €1 million for misleading commercial practices, and saying companies linked to Ferragni profited from the scheme. Consumer groups urged prosecutors to investigate potential fraud and to consider freezing her companies’ accounts. By 2025, the controversy had shifted to criminal proceedings. Milan prosecutors incorporated the AGCM’s conclusions into their case, charging Ferragni with aggravated fraud for allegedly generating false expectations among buyers. To her political enemies, Pandorogate was a case of philanthropy being treated as a marketing accessory. The attorney general stated in the decree that decided the trial would be held in Milan that Ferragni “used” charity “to strengthen her image.” BUBBLE REPUTATION The scandal didn’t just damage the couple’s commercial brand. It also tarnished the progressive picture they created of themselves. “Fedez was always better at controlling the narrative,” said Oggiano, which may help explain why he has managed to remain relevant in Italy’s media landscape. After the divorce, Fedez took control of the public discourse yet again by writing an autobiography. In it, he describes how, already struggling after cancer surgery, he cycled through hospitalizations, panic attacks, heavy medication and periods of erratic behavior, finding support in unlikely places, not least Salvini. A public repositioning followed. Fedez launched a new podcast, where he often hosts some of Italy’s most outspoken right-wing figures, from politicians to other artists and influencers. He calls it “dialogue,” while his critics call it a political shift. His audience has changed too: More male, more skeptical and increasingly drawn to a Joe Rogan-style environment that prizes unfiltered chatter over ideological clarity. Ferragni chose silence instead. Legal troubles, reputational collapse and the withdrawal of brand partners are now pushing her largely out of public view. Their demise removes one of the few high-visibility counterweights to a nationalist government that is now mastering digital communication. What remains of their legacy? At a national level, when it comes to marketing campaigns, “brands are definitely more careful,” Oggiano said. Ferragni now faces a legal battle and a steep climb back to public trust. Fedez has traded activism for opinion-driven entertainment on his podcast. Their shared brand of entrepreneurial optimism and progressive advocacy has evaporated. She paid a heavier price than Fedez, but both careers were always built on a trade-off. As Oggiano puts it: “You have to choose between attention and reputation. Some people choose reputation above all else, and the moment there’s even the slightest scandal, everything collapses.”

The College of Europe is hiring a new rector because the former holder of that role, Federica Mogherini, resigned after being mired in scandal earlier this month. In a vacancy notice posted Monday, the college said it’s accepting applications until March 2, with the new rector to start from June 2026 or soon after. The rector “holds the overall academic and administrative responsibility for the College as a whole,” the notice said.   Candidates must be European nationals, show “important academic qualities” and have management experience, as well as speaking English and French. “In executing their responsibilities, the Rector will live up to the high ethical standards and values of the College of Europe,” the notice said. The elite training ground for future EU civil servants may be hoping for a quieter selection process than last time around, when Mogherini, the EU’s former top diplomat, won the job even though she applied after the deadline and despite accusations of cronyism and not being qualified for the role. Mogherini resigned in early December after being questioned in a fraud probe over a public tender in 2021-22 for a diplomatic academy program. Mogherini’s former employer, the European External Action Service (EEAS), awarded the tender to the College of Europe, and Mogherini became the director of the diplomatic academy in addition to her job as rector of the college. The scandal also took down the former top civil servant at the EEAS, Stefano Sannino. The college has named Ewa Ośniecka-Tamecka as acting rector until a replacement for Mogherini is found. The rector’s job is for a term of five years and can be renewed once. The person will report to former European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, who is the head of the college’s administrative council.

Prime Minister Robert Fico’s leftist-populist ruling coalition voted on Tuesday to abolish an office that protects people who report corruption in a further crackdown on the rule of law in Slovakia. The draft bill — passed via a fast-track procedure on International Anti-Corruption Day — shuts down the country’s Whistleblower Protection Office, which was created in 2021 under the EU’s Whistleblower Protection Directive. The shuttered office will be replaced by a new institution whose leadership will be appointed by the government. Critics and opposition parties say the change will strip various protections from whistleblowers. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office warned last month that restricting protection for whistleblowers “seriously limits detection, reporting, and investigation, particularly of corruption.” The Slovak decision, which drew 78 votes in the 150-seat parliament, is expected to spark tensions with the European Commission. The EU executive noted last month that “several elements of this law raise serious concerns in relation to EU law.” “We regret that MPs did not heed the warnings of dozens of experts and international organizations, including the European Commission and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which drew attention to the negative impacts of the new law,” the Slovak whistleblower office said in a post on Facebook. “The level of protection, as well as public trust in the whistleblower protection system that we have painstakingly built at the office over the past years, will be significantly weakened by this law,” it added. NGOs and the political opposition said they view the move as political payback from Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok, whose ministry had been fined by the whistleblower office for suspending elite police officers under whistleblower protection without first notifying the office. The suspended officers had been investigating corruption among senior Slovak officials. Slovakia’s Interior Ministry told POLITICO in a statement that “the opposition’s claims of ‘revenge’ are false and have no factual basis.” “The change [with the office] is not personal, but institutional. It is a systemic solution to long-standing issues that have arisen in the practical application of the current law, as confirmed by several court rulings,” the ministry said, adding that the changes are consistent with the EU’s whistleblower protection directive. To become law, the legislation still needs approval from President Peter Pellegrini, who has signaled he might veto it. In that case it could be enacted by the parliament in a repeat vote. Since returning to power in 2023 for a fourth term, Fico’s Smer party has taken steps to dismantle anti-corruption institutions, including abolishing the Office of the Special Prosecutor, which had handled high-profile corruption cases, and disbanding NAKA, the elite police unit tasked with fighting organized crime. The European Commission did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.

LONDON — Scandal-hit Japanese tech firm Fujitsu has lost its grip on a lucrative contract to keep running Great Britain’s post-Brexit border with Northern Ireland, following mounting public pressure, two people with knowledge of the bidding process have told POLITICO. The firm at the center of the Post Office scandal — which saw faulty data from Fujitsu’s Horizon software lead to wrongful theft and fraud convictions of hundreds of innocent Post Office workers — had spearheaded a consortium bid for the £370 million contract to continue running the Trader Support Service (TSS), as reported earlier this year. The contract was awarded to another consortium late last month, according to the two people cited above. The 10-day cooling-off period after the contract was awarded ends on Tuesday. The Fujitsu-led consortium, which includes Liz Truss ally Shanker Singham’s firm Competere, has raked in more than £500 million since 2020 developing and operating the platform, which helps firms navigate the complicated post-Brexit customs arrangements between Great Britain and Northern Ireland under the Windsor Framework. While a new supplier will be taking control of TSS, Fujitsu retains the intellectual property rights to a core part of the existing platform, four people with knowledge of the process — including those cited above — confirmed. This means the new system will have to be built from scratch.  All of those cited in this story were granted anonymity to speak freely. There have been calls for Fujitsu to be stripped of its public contracts while sub postmasters affected by the scandal await full compensation. In August, more than 32 MPs and 44 peers wrote to U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, urging him to block the firm from bidding for control of the TSS platform. In October, the government accepted all but one of the recommendations from Wyn Williams’ inquiry into the scandal, published in July, which concluded that at least 13 people may have taken their own lives after being accused of wrongdoing.  There has also been public scrutiny over the running of TSS. Cabinet Office Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds told lawmakers earlier this year he was investigating industry concerns about the service. “We are concerned to hear reports that the Trader Support Service is not providing a good quality of service,” cross-party peers on the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee wrote in an October report. Meanwhile, a report by the Federation of Small Businesses found current support relating to the Windsor Framework — including the TSS — was “falling short of expectations,” with 78 percent of Northern Irish businesses surveyed rating it as either “very poor” or “poor.” A spokesperson for HMRC, which awarded the contract, said: “We follow government procurement rules when awarding contracts, ensuring value for money for taxpayers. All bids underwent a robust evaluation and assurance process, and we will confirm the award in due course.” Fujitsu and Competere did not respond to requests for comment.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Brussels was jolted this week by dawn raids and an alleged fraud probe involving current and former senior EU diplomats. Host Sarah Wheaton speaks with Zoya Sheftalovich — a longtime Brussels Playbook editor who has just returned from Australia to begin her new role as POLITICO’s chief EU correspondent — and with Max Griera, our European Parliament reporter, to unpack what we know so far, what’s at stake for Ursula von der Leyen, and where the investigation may head next. Then, with Zoya staying in the studio, we’re joined by Senior Climate Correspondent Karl Mathiesen, Trade and Competition Editor Doug Busvine and Defense Editor Jan Cienski to take stock of the Commission’s first year — marked by this very bumpy week. We look at competitiveness, climate, defense and the fast-shifting global landscape — and our panel delivers its score for von der Leyen’s team.

Czech right-wing billionaire Andrej Babiš will be the new prime minister in Prague after announcing Thursday evening that he would dispose of a potential conflict of interest. Babiš’ ANO party won the Czech parliamentary election in October and formed a coalition with the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy and right-wing Motorists for Themselves parties. But the proposed prime minister and coalition ministers must be green-lit by Czech President Petr Pavel before taking office. Babiš has been entangled in legal woes, both at home and abroad, concerning his agriculture business empire Agrofert, which is a major recipient of EU subsidies. “Of course, I could have left politics after winning the election and had a comfortable life, or ANO could have appointed someone else as prime minister,” Babiš said Thursday night in a video address to voters. “But I am convinced that you would perceive it as a betrayal,” he added. “That is why I have decided to irrevocably give up the Agrofert company, with which I will no longer have anything to do, I will never own it, I will not have any economic relations with it, and I will not be in any contact with it.” Babiš’ ascension to the Czech premiership further tilts Central Europe in an anti-establishment direction, as the populist tycoon joins Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico as potential thorns in Brussels’ side on key EU files. In stepping back from Agrofert, however, Babiš made clear the importance of retaking the prime ministerial role. The holding’s shares will now be managed through a trust structure by an independent administrator. “This step, which goes far beyond the requirements of the law, was not easy for me. I have been building my company for almost half my life and I am very sorry that I will also have to step down as chairman of the Agrofert Foundation,” Babiš said. “My children will only get Agrofert after my death,” he added. In response, Pavel announced that he would appoint Babiš as prime minister on Dec. 9. Andrej Babiš has been entangled in legal woes, both at home and abroad, concerning his agriculture business empire Agrofert, which is a major recipient of EU subsidies. | Gabriel Kuchta/Getty Images “I appreciate the clear and understandable manner in which Andrej Babiš has fulfilled our agreement and publicly announced how he will resolve his conflict of interest,” Pavel said. Pavel previously noted that strong pro-NATO and pro-EU stances, along with safeguarding the country’s democratic institutions, will be key factors in his decision-making regarding the proposed Cabinet. Czech conflict of interest law bars officials (or their close relatives) from owning or controlling a business that would create a conflict with their governing function. This doesn’t mean ministers can’t own businesses, just that they must prioritize the public interest over their own. Similar rules exist at the EU level. When he was prime minister the first time round, from 2017 to 2021, Babiš placed Agrofert — which consists of more than 250 companies — in trust funds, but the Czech courts as well as the European Commission in 2021 concluded that he still retained influence over them and was therefore in violation of EU conflict-of-interest rules.

The EU’s former top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, has resigned as rector of the College of Europe. In a statement, Mogherini said: “In line with the utmost rigour and fairness with which I always carried out my duties, today I decided to resign as Rector of the College of Europe and Director of the European Union Diplomatic Academy.” Mogherini and one of the bloc’s most senior diplomats, Stefano Sannino, were taken into custody Tuesday after Belgian police launched raids as part of a fraud probe. Sannino left his role in the Commission on Wednesday. The police searched the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the College of Europe over alleged corruption in the establishment of a training academy for diplomats. Mogherini, a former Italian foreign minister, was in charge of the EEAS from 2014 to 2019 and has been at the College of Europe since 2020.

The United States is paying attention to the fraud scandal that has rocked the EU this week. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau used social media to take aim at Federica Mogherini, the former EU top diplomat who is at the center of the corruption scandal. Retweeting a France 24 story about Mogherini, Landau wrote: “This is the same person, incidentally, who characterized Communist Cuba as a ‘one-party democracy’ and fostered European investment, tourism, and trade that propped up the island’s repressive and stridently anti-American regime.” The European External Action Service’s 2016 Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World described Cuba’s political system as “a one-party democracy.” Mogherini was head of the EEAS at the time. Belgian authorities conducted dawn raids on Tuesday and detained Mogherini and ex-EEAS Secretary-General Stefano Sannino as part of an investigation into a tendering process to set up a diplomatic academy attached to the College of Europe, where Mogherini is now rector. Landau has had Europe in his sights this week. On Wednesday, he slammed European NATO allies for prioritizing their own defense industry over American arms suppliers. Landau told NATO foreign ministers not to “bully” his country’s defense firms out of participating in Europe’s rearmament.

BRUSSELS — Last year’s gathering of Europe’s far right in Brussels took place behind metal shutters after protesters, police and city politicians tried to stop it from going ahead. This year, the doors are wide open — albeit flanked by security guards — and it’s the EU’s mainstream leadership that is under siege. Just a day after the EU was rocked by the arrest of two senior figures in a corruption probe, many at the Battle for the Soul of Europe conference — hosted by MCC Brussels, a think tank with close links to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and bringing together top officials from Budapest with right-wing politicians, activists and commentators from across the continent — said the time was right to channel public anger at the establishment. The latest corruption scandal is “another sign of double standards,” Balázs Orbán, political director to the Hungarian prime minister and the keynote speaker at the conference, said in an interview with POLITICO. “A corruption-based technocratic elite is mismanaging procedures. This element is very strong and it’s quite visible for the European voters but if you talk to Americans … this is what they see from Europe.” Prime Minister Orbán has repeatedly blasted the “EU elites” as out of touch and has sought to blame them for freezing funding for his own country over backsliding on democracy and the rule of law. There was a bullish mood at the event, held a stone’s throw from the EU Quarter of Brussels. Polish politician Ryszard Legutko, co-chairman of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists group, took aim at Commission President Ursula von der Leyen herself. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images Polish politician Ryszard Legutko, co-chairman of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists group, took aim at Commission President Ursula von der Leyen herself. “The fish stinks from its head,” he blasted. John O’Brien, one of the organizers of the two-day conference, which kicked off on Wednesday, said “a couple of years ago people were scared to say some of these things about immigration, to raise concerns about environmental extremism, to talk about the mismanagement of economies … now, people are really finding their voices.” “It’s been demonstrated the last few years, time and time again, that Europe is dirty and needs to be cleaned up,” said O’Brien, as waiters in bowties served coffee to attendees. The latest embarrassment for the EU — the detention on Tuesday of former Commission Vice President Federica Mogherini and ex-top diplomatic official Stefano Sannino as part of a fraud probe — has given the right plenty of ammunition. At a panel on Thursday, French National Rally MEP Thierry Mariani and British political commentator Matthew Goodwin are set to take aim at the “deep-state web of civil service, NGOs and captured institutions.” Alice Cordier, a French activist and president of the Nemesis Collective, a self-described feminist campaign group that has been branded a far-right Islamophobic outfit by critics, said “corruption is a big issue.” The scandals, she said, compound public anger that has so far been focused largely on the consequences of migration. Balasz Orbán, however, was skeptical that the scandal would be a game-changer for national elections, including his own boss’s tough re-election fight next year. “Honestly,” he said, the internal corruption allegation is “not a big surprise for me, so it doesn’t add too much.” But according to Daniel Freund, an MEP from the German Greens, the far right is not “in any position” to credibly champion the anti-corruption cause. “They are the problem, not the solution,” Freund said, adding that the far-right Patriots group [in the European Parliament, to which Orbán’s Fidesz party belongs] has voted against “almost every measure that would strengthen the fight against corruption.” For now, the EU’s political leadership has been muted on the fraud investigation and is firmly on the defensive, its hands tied by ongoing legal proceedings. That has some worried: “The credibility of our institutions is at stake,” said Manon Aubry, co-chair of The Left group in the European Parliament. Others from von der Leyen’s own governing coalition want to see her take an unequivocally tough stance before her opponents capitalize on the idea that the Brussels bureaucracy is awash with the abuse of public money. “It needs to be dealt with at a European level,” said Raquel García Hermida-van der Walle, a Dutch MEP from the centrist Renew faction. “Whether it is … Qatargate, or these new fraud suspicions. Zero tolerance and more tools to tackle this.” Max Griera and Dionisios Sturis contributed reporting.