4M sounds rather cheap for manipulating EU politics.

Explains why the EU goes after Apple and Microsoft but leaves the far worse Google alone.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

A vast cache of leaked documents from the police investigation into the biggest corruption case to hit the EU in decades — seen by POLITICO — uncovers the full extent of the European Parliament’s money-for-influence scandal.

The scandal first came to light exactly a year ago this week, when Panzeri, Giorgi and other key figures were arrested in a series of dramatic raids involving bags of cash and lurid tales of foreign interference at the heart of EU democracy.

While investigators suspect that Panzeri and his network were manipulating the Parliament on behalf of Qatar and other states, the documents suggest they were also trying to exploit foreign officials’ lack of knowledge about EU democracy.

As European leaders confront the ignominious one-year anniversary of the scandal, which erupted on December 9 last year, the disclosures contained in the Qatargate Files will submit the EU’s ethical standards to intense scrutiny once again.

Panzeri and Giorgi billed Qatar for a package of actions including a series of tweets and film screenings relating to the murder of Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi, while strongly condemning Riyadh’s responsibility for the killing.

Giorgi’s spreadsheet suggested that the group worked to try to stop an anti-slavery activist, who had made enemies in the Mauritanian government, from winning the EU’s prestigious Sakharov Prize for human rights.

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