There was no proof linking the previous digital marketing campaign supervisor of the European Folks’s Occasion (EPP) to bribes allegedly acquired throughout the 2019 EU election marketing campaign, German prosecutors introduced on Monday (13 November), concluding a year-long case that concerned a raid of the EPP headquarters in Brussels.
The inquiry honed in on a cost to Mario Voigt (CDU) from a consulting agency that suggested the centre-right EPP and its Spitzenkandidat Manfred Weber (CSU) throughout the 2019 EU election marketing campaign.
Voigt, now the chief of the conservative CDU get together in Germany’s regional state of Thuringia, had been in control of the EPP’s digital marketing campaign and was suspected of bringing on the Thuringian agency in alternate for a bribe.
Voigt constantly denied any wrongdoing.
After months of scrutiny, public prosecutors have now concluded the investigation, confirming on Monday that no proof had been discovered that the cost was a bribe.
Voigt welcomed the event.
“The closure of the investigation now formally confirms that there was and is nothing to the allegations made in opposition to me,” the CDU lawmaker stated in an announcement.
The prosecutor’s conclusion marked the decision of an eye catching investigation, ongoing for nearly a yr, which included searches of Voigt’s residence, workplace, and most prominently, the EPP headquarters in Brussels in April this yr.
It additionally comes as a aid for Weber because the raid had triggered inside dismay throughout the EPP in view of Voigt’s shut ties to the EPP chief.
The timing of the revelations was additionally thought of problematic within the run-up to a number of elections and amidst investigations in opposition to MEPs who had allegedly acquired bribes from the Qatar authorities and others.
[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]
Learn extra with EURACTIV
