All the flirting of Europe with Qatar
With Qatar, the European states have a dense business network that nobody, with great hypocrisy, wants to give up. Alberto Negri's italics taken from his Facebook profile
Here in Europe we are all Qataris. The Qatar Investment Fund has an estimated 400 billion dollars at its disposal (that of the Saudi assassination prince, the PIF, which pays Senator Renzi has twice as much), 45 are invested in Great Britain.
And again, 25 billion euros in France, a few dozen in Italy and Germany. Doha is the world's second largest producer of liquid gas and a major buyer of goods, services and weapons. How many bribes, in addition to tips to those four scoundrels from Brussels, have passed through Europe in recent years?
Half (47%) of the financing and infrastructure investments for the World Cup in Qatar (200 billion in total) came from European banks, pension funds and insurance companies, which turned a blind eye, or even two, to the documented violations of human rights, especially of migrant workers.
According to Fair Finance International – an international network of civil society organizations that seeks to encourage banks and financial institutions to comply with social standards – Deutsche Bank alone contributed 42% of European funding, 15.7 billion dollars. It should be remembered that in Germany, Qatar – with shares in Porsche, Volkswagen and important energy deals – holds a 6.1% stake in Deutsche Bank (but also in Credit Suisse) through former premier Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani .
The largest European investor in the sector in Qatar and in Qatari sovereign bonds is Allianz, with over 4 billion dollars.
With Qatar, European states have a dense business network that nobody wants to give up. All seasoned with absolute hypocrisy: with one hand the media denounces violations of human rights and gays, with the other the Europeans go to collect the money from Doha, as well as from all the Gulf countries, Saudi including, among the world's largest arms buyers, who with Xi Jinping's trip to Riyadh turned to the Chinese because they were annoyed by Americans and Europeans. But be careful to protect Qatari investments in Europe it's not just the ragged lobby loaded with bags of cash, discovered in Brussels: it's directly our governments and heads of state.
Take Britain, where the City of London has banned Qatari transport advertising in protest of rights abuses. The decision actually dates back to three years ago, when Mayor Sadiq Khan imposed a ban on transport advertising for all companies that violate LGBTQIA+ rights including companies from Pakistan, Brunei and Saudi Arabia.
Qatar has reacted by declaring that some investments in the capital will be "reviewed", where the Qatar Investment Authority owns the Harrods department store, the iconic Shard building, co-owns Canary Wharf, owns Chelsea Barracks, the Savoy and Grosvenor House hotels and has a 20% stake in Heathrow Airport.
In reality, Doha's future investments will be "redirected" to other British cities and the plan presented in May in London by the Emir Tamin bin Hamad al Thani to former premier Ben Johanson remains unchanged, which envisages a flow of Qatari money to Great Britain 11.6 billion euros over the next five years, including Rolls Royce.
Macron intervened directly in France on November 24, to dampen the controversy over the World Cup in Doha, with a statement stating that in Qatar "real changes are underway" regarding the treatment of migrant workers. Qatar owns half of Paris in the portfolio of the State Fund or directly among the assets of the family of the Emir Al Thani, the French National Assembly already in 2008 had voted a law for the tax exemption of Qatari real estate investments and their capital gains while the head of security of the Paris Saint Germain team is a former prefect friend of Sarkozy.
Nor are we too squeamish in Italy given that Qatar has invested – in addition to the Valentino brand – around ten billion (officially 5) in luxury hotels in Rome, Venice, Milan, the Costa Smeralda and will be the driving force behind the next futuristic district of Porta Nuova in Milan.
And perhaps someone also remembers the ties in Italy between Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood. A book entitled "Qatar Papers" talked about it, written by French journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot which revealed Doha's funding in 2014 to mosques and Islamic centers in Europe: 72 million euros, of which 22 in Italy alone. At the time, we sold Emir Al Thani (who has a share in Airbus), in just over a year, 9 billion euros in ships and helicopters.
Maybe that way we can better explain how things are. In Italy, the indignation for the World Cup in Qatar was expressed by the comedian Rosario Fiorello who on Raidue TV said that "the Qataris have written 'human rights' on their doormat, and they trample on them every day". What a crap…
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/tutti-gli-amori-delleuropa-per-il-qatar/ on Sat, 17 Dec 2022 07:09:15 +0000.