Few stories have brightened this bleak winter more deliciously than that of the family values advocate József Szájer, (now former) MEP for Viktor Orbán’s anti-LGBT Fidesz party being caught running away from an orgy. Szájer, who was instrumental in drafting the new Hungarian constitution to include the phrase “Hungary will protect the institution of marriage as the union of a man and a woman”, was detained by Brussels police after scaling a drainpipe to escape their raid. When searched, ecstasy was found in his backpack. It is the kind of hypocritical bigot’s comeuppance it’s impossible not to relish: some wag has even erected a plaque on the drainpipe commemorating the end of his career there.
I can’t enjoy it wholeheartedly though, because it is also a Brussels story and I fear the crackle of static as Nigel Farage rubs his slacks in glee. He and his supporters will decry this at this further confirmation of EU arrogance and cultural decadence: more Eurosleaze. (Yes, former MEP Farage who sees no hypocrisy in saying he will draw his £73,000 EU pension.) That two other participants also claimed diplomatic immunity risks further reinforcing the idea of Brussels as a place where the privileged can act with impunity.
I lived in the city for 12 years, working on the fringes of the “Brussels bubble” (a thriving ecosystem of lobbyists, lawyer and NGOs operates around the European institutions), then drifting further away, but with plenty of friends within. My experience is that bored Eurocrats far from home with a hefty disposable income can, indeed, get up to all sorts. The Place du Luxembourg on Thursday nights – the traditional Euro-party night – hosts an anthropologically fascinating bacchanal.
A sex party between consenting adults is irresponsible in a pandemic, but in safer times, why not? I can only applaud their energy levels. Sometimes, however, the picture becomes far murkier, particularly when an imbalance of power is added to the mix. The MeTooEP blog has been cataloguing a grim litany of incidents of sexual harassment, from lecherous comments to rape, usually targeting young assistants, since 2018. It was launched in response to the European parliament’s failure to act on a 2017 resolution to tackle institutional sexual violence. Friends have experienced this personally: men who believe a lanyard and an AD 10 grade (officials move through strictly codified ranks up to the godlike tier 16) is an aphrodisiac.
Is the Brussels bubble a place of privilege? Absolutely. Is that privilege occasionally misused? Yes, and the institutions must do far more than talk about stamping out sexual harassment and other abuses of power. They must do this for obvious reasons, but also to avoid wider collateral damage to the European project. I find it frustrating when its inaction further fuels the idea that the EU and the people who make it work are corrupt and unprincipled, because they really aren’t.
I know this is all moot for the UK. We’re gone, give or take some mackerel. Negotiations for our oven-ready deal (sigh) remain on a knife-edge and both potential outcomes are deeply unappealing. Who knows what the recent deployment of the PM will yield, other than more strained classical analogies. But I’m a Euro-zealot and can’t let this misconception stand without a bit of a fight.
The EU has been a huge, progressive force for good since 1957, when the treaty of Rome enshrined a principle of gender equality that was a distant dream in most countries. Since then, it has systematically pushed member states to act on fundamental human rights, ensuring huge advances on anti-discrimination, maternity rights, equal pay, working time and more.
A handful of its representatives behave as if the rules do not apply to them. But overwhelmingly, the Brussels institutions are made up of hard-working people from across Europe who believe in the grand, idealistic project and are committed to improving its imperfect reality. Much EU business is turgid, verging on the absurd: position papers on concrete, negotiations about whether burgers must contain meat (“committee meeting after committee meeting”, sighs a bubble friend) and English words English people don’t understand (I especially like “non-paper” – a non binding document). But when it works, it is genuinely inspiring. I miss the place. I’ll miss us being part of it.
Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
