police raid the biggest party in the EU

Officers stormed the headquarters of the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) in Brussels on Tuesday over an ongoing corruption inquiry in Germany. The investigation is focused on Mario Voigt, the leader of the CDU political party in Thuringia, who was hired to run the EPP’s digital election campaign in 2019, and allegedly contracted some work out to an internet firm in Thuringia in exchange for a bribe. The EPP is a transnational coalition of center-right and Christian-democratic parties from across the EU, including Germany’s CDU, France’s Republicans, and Ireland’s Fine Gael. Voigt’s alleged corruption is one of multiple stories of graft to emerge from the EU Parliament in recent months. Shortly after German media outlets began reporting on the police probe into her campaign work last September, the legislature’s vice president, Eva Kaili, was arrested by Belgian police over allegedly taking bribes from Qatari officials.