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The European Parliament has opened an investigation into allegations of harassment against the Belgian EU lawmaker Assita Kanko, according to documents seen by POLITICO.
Kanko, 42, is one of the six vice-chairs of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), and her policy specialisms include the EU’s migration policy.
At stake is not just the reputation of one MEP or the well-being of her staff and former colleagues. Any potential sanctions against Kanko would put the spotlight once again on the European Parliament. There have already been two confirmed cases of harassment by European lawmakers so far this year. The reputation of the EU’s democratic decision-making body has also taken a battering in the past six months from the Qatargate corruption scandal.
The investigation follows a complaint lodged in November 2022, according to the documents. Under Parliament rules, the opening of an investigation means the case has already gone through an initial “preliminary study” to decide if there are grounds to investigate.
Since she was elected in 2019, Kanko has had 13 parliamentary staffers, according to transparency website ParlTrack. This doesn’t include a number of interns, who are not listed on the website but whose names were confirmed to POLITICO. A European lawmaker normally has three parliamentary staffers at any one time.
POLITICO spoke to one person familiar with the investigation, three former Kanko staffers and two other Parliament officials who worked closely with the MEP or her team. They were all granted anonymity as they feared speaking up could either hurt their careers or interfere with the harassment investigation. The staffers provided written texts, emails and voice recording messages from Kanko at the time of working there.
These allegedly showed her making demands during weekends, days off and outside normal office hours — both early in the morning and sometimes even in the middle of the night.
All of these individuals alleged there was a culture of fear within Kanko’s office as she issued orders that were impossible to meet and made personal demands that were not appropriate for members of her staff.
In a statement emailed to POLITICO, Kanko said she would not comment on the allegations made against her while the investigation was ongoing. This, she said, was “out of respect for the procedure, the committee which executes it and the European Parliament, and out of respect for the privacy of all parties.”
“A former staffer filed a complaint in the European Parliament against his dismissal and that complaint was heard and dismissed. He has also initiated what is known as a ‘harassment procedure.’ To my regret and frustration, those proceedings are taking a long time and are therefore ongoing,” Kanko said. “I have provided all my arguments and rebuttals within those proceedings and am in a strong place. But I have also followed the rules of the procedure throughout this entire time.”
A spokesperson for her Flemish nationalist N-VA party declined to comment.
Kanko, who was born in Burkina Faso, has been active in Belgian politics for over a decade. After a stint as a local politician for the Francophone liberals, she switched parties in 2018 to the N-VA. In 2019, she was elected as a member of the European Parliament. Her main focus is the EU’s migration policy in the Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.
Accusations of ‘mind games’
The European Parliament defines psychological harassment as “any improper conduct that takes place over a period, is repetitive or systematic and involves physical behaviour, spoken or written language, gestures or other acts that are intentional and that may undermine the personality, dignity or physical or psychological integrity of any person.”
Two of the former staffers described examples of what they saw as alleged mind games by Kanko. “She makes you believe that you are the one who did something wrong or said something wrong, even when you have evidence of the contrary,” said one of them.
While all staffers acknowledged that working in politics inevitably means working irregular hours sometimes, they alleged that Kanko behaved in an unreasonable way. “It always had to be done immediately, so you left your friends and family to handle her request,” said the first staffer mentioned above. “The day after, she had changed her mind to go back to the initial plan. This happened constantly and drove us all mad.”
The staffers also described an alleged lack of boundaries between Kanko’s demands for work purposes and for personal matters. She allegedly asked staffers to collect, get food for or babysit her child, and to run personal errands or administrative tasks.
When asked why it had taken so long before someone launched a formal complaint, the former staffers said that they were either afraid of the consequences or wanted to move on with their lives.
It’s not clear when the anti-harassment investigation in the European Parliament will conclude as timings vary from case to case. The investigation is handled by the so-called Advisory Committee which deals with harassment complaints concerning MEPs.
This committee is composed of three lawmakers, two parliamentary assistants and one person representing the European Parliament staff. When their investigation is concluded, an opinion is sent to European Parliament President Roberta Metsola. If the investigation finds evidence of harassment, Metsola announces the charges and potential sanctions against the MEP at a plenary session of the Parliament. Sanctions can include temporarily depriving the lawmaker of their daily expenses allowance.
A European Parliament spokesperson said that “due to the confidentiality of the work of the Advisory Committee, we cannot comment whether a procedure has been launched or not.”