Belgian prosecutors say the employee “played a key role” in a suspected Russian propaganda operation that infiltrated the European Parliament.
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Brussels police and French police carried out a series of simultaneous searches on Wednesday morning at European Parliament offices in Brussels and Strasbourg and at the home of a parliamentary employee in the Belgian district of Schaerbeek.
Dutch EU lawmaker Marcel de Graaf identified the official in question on social media platform X as his parliamentary aide, Guillaume Pradura, but distanced himself from the accusations.
“I have no involvement in the so-called Russian disinformation campaign. I have my political beliefs and I express them. That is my job as a MEP,” De Graaf insisted.
Graaf was elected to the European Parliament in 2014 for the far-right Party for Freedom (currently set to govern in the Netherlands), but left the party to join Forum for Democracy (FV) in 2022. In October 2022, he was expelled from the European political group Identity and Democracy (ID) for his pro-Russian comments about the invasion of Ukraine.
Pradura’s aide was expelled from Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in 2019 over anti-Semitic photos and previously worked as an aide to Maximilian Klahr, a German member of the European Parliament who is also embroiled in a Chinese espionage investigation.
The raids are part of a wider investigation into Russian influence operations that allegedly involved paying sitting Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to spread pro-Russian propaganda from the heart of EU institutions in Brussels.
The Belgian prosecutor, who ordered Wednesday’s search, said there were “indications” that the parliamentary employee in question played a “significant role” in Russian propaganda activities, and confirmed that the search related to cases involving “interference, passive corruption and membership in criminal organisations.”
When asked by Euronews for an official statement, the European Parliament’s press office said it “cannot comment on ongoing investigations.”
“If requested, the European Parliament will and will continue to cooperate fully with law enforcement and judicial authorities and assist them in the administration of justice. It is against this background that access to the offices was provided,” the statement added.
The raid is the latest development in an ongoing investigation into Voice of Europe, a Dutch-listed news company that was sanctioned by the European Union earlier this month for spreading Kremlin propaganda.
The news company claims to provide “uncensored news from Europe and the world” and as recently as March this year hosted individual interviews and debates with sitting MEPs which were broadcast from the European Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg.
In late March, Czech authorities announced they had uncovered Russian influence operations carried out through Voice of Europe, involving financial transactions aimed at members of the European Parliament and national parliaments.
Czech media reported, citing intelligence sources, that the investigation involves politicians from Germany, France, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Hungary.
One of the MEPs interviewed by the so-called media was Anders Fistisen, who represented the far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) faction in the European Parliament in debates ahead of the European elections in June.
Asked by Euronews earlier this month if he had received payment for the interview, Vistisen categorically denied it: “No, of course not. That interview was set up on the same premise as this one. I was asked to be interviewed and I did so. That’s my job as a politician.”
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The staff member’s former boss, Maximilian Kurler, a member of the European Parliament for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) who was recently expelled from its European branches after publishing anti-Nazi comments in an Italian newspaper, also denies the staff member’s connection to Voice of Europe and claims that he gave interviews to the company but received no financial benefit from them.
“There are no specific allegations that I was paid for any of this,” Klahr said on X. “This tells us what to think about the current campaign: there is none!”
Klahr’s assistant was subsequently arrested on suspicion of spying for China.
The latest developments in the investigation come just days before some 370 million EU voters head to the polls to elect new members to the European Parliament, a vote that has raised major fears could be a target for Kremlin interference.
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Following the attack, the European Green Party’s leading candidate Terry Reintke claimed that “the right wing is playing Russian roulette with European democracy”.
“Putin’s puppets must not be allowed access to power, especially with the European Parliament elections next week and voters deserve a clear decision,” Reintke added.
