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A freshman MEP has fallen into the trap set by the Sunday Timesto flush out MEPs susceptible to corruption. The MEP is the Spaniard Pablo Zalba (Popular Party, under the European People's Party). According to El Mundo, Zalba “doctored a Community directive at the request of a fake pressure group in exchange for a promise of 100,000 euros." Zalba met journalists from the British weekly posing as lobbyists in January as they sought to “expose the way in which lobbyists are slipping in amendments to EU legislation” writes the Madrid daily. "I can amend any report drawn up by the parliament," Zalba reportedly said in his meeting with the faux lobbyists: as evidence, the text they asked for was approved with the same wording they had proposed. The newspaper notes that Zalba did not in the end receive the money promised.
A conversation with investigative reporters Stefano Valentino and Giorgio Michalopoulos, who have dissected the dark underbelly of green finance for Voxeurop and won several awards for their work.
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