{"id":12501,"date":"2026-06-24T07:41:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T04:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=12501"},"modified":"2026-06-24T07:41:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T04:41:00","slug":"something-is-rotten-in-the-kingdom-of-brussels-the-warrant-for-avramopoulos-is-bordering-on-the-ridiculous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=12501","title":{"rendered":"Something is rotten in the kingdom of Brussels: the warrant for Avramopoulos is \u201cbordering on the ridiculous\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/b>How and why a Belgian police chief \u201cdug up\u201d a \u201cclosed\u201d case for which <\/span>Avramopoulos<\/b> all explanations have been provided?<\/span><\/p>\n

By Ioulia Skourti<\/b><\/p>\n

Many loved the conspiracy, but no one loved the conspirators.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/b> In the middle of summer and after a (strange) delay of many months, but also with documents that are \u201cbordering on the ridiculous,\u201d as legal experts and government officials describe them, <\/span>the Belgian police decided to issue an arrest warrant (!) for the \u201csuspect\u201d Dimitris Avramopoulos.<\/b><\/p>\n

To be precise, a Belgian police director made the request after previously reopening (editor\u2019s note: allegedly committed the crime, according to reports, without any new evidence) the case from the archives.<\/p>\n

And this is where the tough questions begin for the Belgian police officer (and those in business circles who are rubbing their hands together over this flimsy case), who wants to arrest the former European Commissioner.<\/p>\n

Did he act on his own, or was he guided by forces seeking to make Greece a hostage to scandal-mongering?\u00a0<\/p>\n

How and why did he \u201cdug up\u201d a \u201cdead\u201d case for which Avramopoulos\u2019s side has already provided all the explanations?<\/p>\n

Why did it take over a year to issue the warrant against the leading figure of the center-right party?<\/p>\n

Note: The argument that Avramopoulos had been summoned to testify before the Belgian authorities about a year ago, but his failure to appear at the hearing hindered the progress of the investigation, is ridiculous, to say the least.<\/p>\n

In which police manual has anyone ever seen it written that a person can be accused of involvement in a \u201ccriminal organization\u201d from which he \u201cderived income\u201d but the \u201caccused\u201d has declared all of it in his Declaration of Assets?<\/p>\n

Why didn\u2019t the Belgian police officer (and those behind him) ask the same of the others who participated in Panzeri\u2019s infamous NGO <\/b>, namely Federica Mogherini, former High Representative of the European Union, Bernard Cazeneuve, former Prime Minister of France, and Denis Mukwege, a Congolese Nobel laureate? <\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re coming from everywhere,\u201d aimed at destabilizing the government<\/b><\/h3>\n

Regarding the strange arrest warrant (both in terms of the timing of its release and the \u201cevidence\u201d accompanying it), Dimitris Avramopoulos issued a furious statement in which, after refuting the Belgian police officer\u2019s allegations with supporting documents, he makes it clear that he will not invoke any parliamentary immunity, on the contrary, as he emphasizes, he will turn to the Greek justice system himself, requesting \u201cthat the matter be fully investigated and a ruling be issued.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also maintains that this case \u201cnever concerned him\u201d<\/b> and that any mention of his name \u201cis arbitrary, unacceptable, and suspicious, and will be addressed by every legal means.\u201d<\/p>\n

It should be noted that the Greek government has been in the crosshairs of the European Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office based in Brussels, which, incidentally, has great sympathy for certain Greek political parties and even greater sympathy for business and vested-interest circles.<\/p>\n

Led, then, by the \u201cpriestess\u201d of catharsis Laura Kovesi<\/b> (who apparently believes that Greece is a judicial protectorate of Romania, where she hails from), a systematic effort is underway to destabilize the government, and anyone who fails to understand this\u2014both inside and outside government circles\u2014is completely in the dark.<\/p>\n

Avramopoulos\u2019s participation in Fight Impunity<\/b><\/h3>\n

Dimitris Avramopoulos had completed his term as European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs, and Citizenship<\/b> on November 30, 2019. <\/p>\n

According to the European Commission\u2019s Code of Conduct<\/b>, every former commissioner is required to notify the Commission of any professional, advisory, or other activities undertaken after the end of their term, if such activities may be related to their previous institutional capacity.<\/p>\n

Following this procedure, he submitted his participation in Fight Impunity to the European Commission for approval. It was reviewed by the relevant bodies, evaluated by the Independent Ethics Committee, and approved by a decision of the President of the European Commission.<\/b><\/p>\n

The European Commission\u2019s approval was accompanied by clear conditions. Dimitris Avramopoulos was not permitted to use confidential information from his time at the Commission.<\/b> He was not permitted to intervene with the European Commission on behalf of the organization. He was not authorized to engage in lobbying in areas related to his previous portfolio. These conditions were accepted and adhered to.<\/p>\n

His participation was accompanied by a monthly honorarium of 5,000 euros gross, for a period of one year, from February 2021 to February 2022. This compensation had been disclosed to the European Commission as part of the approval process and formed part of the overall institutional assessment of his participation. This was not an undeclared, informal, or ancillary financial relationship.<\/p>\n

The amount was duly declared to the competent Greek tax authorities and taxed in Greece, in accordance with applicable law. After legal withholdings and tax deductions, the net amount came to 3,750 euros per month.<\/p>\n

Case file submitted to Parliament<\/b><\/h3>\n

The Belgian police\u2019s request to lift the immunity of the former Commissioner for Migration, Internal Affairs and Citizenship of the European Union (2014\u20132019) Dimitris Avramopoulos, in order to execute the arrest warrant for his involvement in Antonio Panzeri\u2019s NGO, which is implicated in the Qatargate scandal.<\/b><\/p>\n

The relevant request was promptly forwarded to the Hellenic Parliament by Deputy Minister of Justice Ioannis Bougas.<\/b> According to reports, three charges have been brought against Mr. Avramopoulos:<\/p>\n

Membership in a criminal organization<\/b><\/p>\n

Public corruption<\/b><\/p>\n

Money laundering<\/b> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How and why did a Belgian police chief \u201cdug up\u201d a \u201cclosed\u201d case regarding which Avramopoulos\u2019s side has provided all the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}