In the European Parliament, whose corridors he walked from 2004 to 2019, his surname made people smile but stuck quite well to the character’s physique. A stocky, stocky man who would have made a good rugby scrum-half. The personality of Pier Antonio Panzeri, 67 years old today, did not fit, on the other hand, with the image of the Panzer, the famous armored vehicle, or “carapace”, German. To those who rubbed shoulders with him, the elected Italian leftist, born in Riviera d’Adda, in Lombardy, left the memory of a discreet elected representative. “A man of networks, cordial, sympathetic”remembers an Italian journalist.
“Interactions with him were extremely limitedrecalls Arnaud Danjean, LR MEP, from the EPP group. He speaks neither English nor French, only Italian. Which, in the Foreign Affairs Committee, is not very practical! » Same observation of David McAllister, the current German president (EPP) of this commission, who also rubbed shoulders with the Italian during his previous mandates. “Our contacts were limited, given the problem of language exchange…”
It is indeed him, this somewhat unobtrusive elected official who often carried his files around in a plastic bag, whom Belgian police investigators nevertheless point to as the engine of the “alleged criminal organization” which, financed by Qatar, allegedly infiltrate the European Parliament. Former president of the sub-committee on human rights, president of the delegation for relations with the Maghreb, he co-founded, in 2019, Fight Impunity, an NGO whose mission, as official as it is vague, is to “fight against impunity and the violation of human rights”.
She would have served as a financial channel and is today under the magnifying glass of justice, like the men and women whom Panzeri would have, according to the investigators, placed in useful posts for a possible defense of the image and the interests of sponsors. strangers.
Heavyweight of the political and trade union left
If he left a rather vague trace among the French, the Germans or the Scandinavians, the former trade unionist, a reformist well anchored on the left, was, on the other hand, known and influential among Italian speakers. Belgian MEP Marc Tarabella, a member of the S&D group, whose home was raided on Saturday December 10, shared a passion for football with this Inter Milan fan, but the Lombard was especially close to Marie Arena, another Belgian S&D deputy of Italian origin, at the forefront of the issue of human rights.
Panzeri had taken over as head of the subcommittee and “That’s how I met him”, explains the elected official of the Belgian PS. Monday, December 12, she gave up her current position as president of the subcommittee, one of her assistants having worked for Fight Impunity, with whom she would not have, she says, ” no special relationship.
You have 43.49% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.