Eva Kaili

Eva Kaili (Εύα Καϊλή; born 26 October 1978) is a Greek politician who has been a member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 2014.

She served as one of fourteen vice presidents of the European Parliament from January 2022 until she was arrested in December 2022 and charged with corruption as part of the Qatar corruption scandal at the European Parliament.

Kaili was born in October 1978 in Thessaloniki to parents Maria Ignatiadou and Alexandros Kailis.

She has a younger sister, Mantalena, who is CEO of ELONTech, an organisation aligned to Kaili's parliamentary work on emerging technologies.

Kaili studied architecture and civil engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

In 1992, Kaili joined the PASOK Youth.

In 2001, she was President of the School of Architecture Students' Association and by 2002, she was already the youngest member to be elected to the Thessaloniki City Council.

Before her political career, she was a news presenter for Greek television channel MEGA Channel from 2004 to 2007.

Following her arrest on 9 December 2022, Kaili was held in pre-trial detention in Brussels until 14 April 2023, when she was released to house arrest with an electronic bracelet, a measure that was lifted on 25 May.

Through her lawyers, Kaili has denied all charges and has accused the Belgian authorities of using torture against her.

In September 2023, she was successful in triggering an internal investigation on the affair by Belgian justice, focusing on how evidence was collected and whether Belgian judicial and police services acted illegally in arresting and detaining her.

In February 2024, Kaili announced she would not run for re-election as an MEP.

Before her political career, Kaili was a newscaster at Mega Channel from 2004 until 2007.

In the 2004 national elections, Kaili was the youngest candidate standing.

Kaili was a Member of the Hellenic Parliament from 2007 to 2012.

In the 2007 national elections, she was elected as a member of the Hellenic Parliament for the first district of Thessaloniki.

At the time, she was the youngest Member of Parliament with the PASOK party.

She continued her studies at the University of Piraeus where she obtained a Master of Arts degree in international and European affairs in 2008.

She retained her seat in the 2009 national elections until 2012.

During her term in Parliament, Kaili served as a member of the following Parliamentary Committees: Standing Committee on Cultural and Educational Affairs, Standing Committee on National Defense and Foreign Affairs, and Special Permanent Committee of Greeks Abroad.

She was also a member of the Greek delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean.

Ahead of a crucial vote of confidence for Prime Minister, George Papandreou in November 2011, Kaili made headlines when she announced that she would refuse to support the government in the vote; this would have left Papandreou with the support of just 151 PASOK deputies out of 300.

She later backtracked and Papandreou won the vote of confidence with all 155 lawmakers of PASOK expressing their support for his beleaguered government.

Eva Kaili has been Member of the European Parliament since 2014 and was a member of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group until her expulsion in 2022.

Kaili now sits as an independent.

She is vice president for Innovation Strategy, ICT, Technology, Foresight, Businesses, ESG and CSR, UN, WTO, OECD and the Middle East.

She was also Chair of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence (C4AI), and Chair of the Delegation for relations with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (DNAT) 2014–2019.

She has been serving on the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE), the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON), and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL).

She is an alternate member on the Committee on Budgets (BUDG) and on Delegation for relations with the Arabian Peninsula (DARP) and was also involved in the Commission investigating the spyware Pegasus (PEGA).

In addition to her committee assignments, Kaili is a member of the European Parliament Intergroup on Cancer, the European Parliament Intergroup on Disability, the Delegation to the EU-Russia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee (D-RU) and the Delegation for Relations with the United States of America (D-US).

She was the first woman to Chair of the European Parliament's Science and Technology Options Assessment body (STOA) 2017–2022.

She was the recipient of a 2018 MEP Award for New Technologies.

Kaili became one of fourteen vice presidents of the European Parliament on 18 January 2022 after being elected on the first round by 454 votes.

She was suspended from her vice-presidential duties on 10 December.

Between 2019 and 2022, Kaili was the head of the Hellenic S&D delegation until her expulsion from the party.

On 13 December 2022, the European Parliament voted to remove Kaili from her position as one of their vice presidents, with 625 votes in favor of removal, one against, and two abstentions.

On 9 December 2022, Kaili was arrested by Belgian Federal Police following an investigation into organized crime, corruption and money laundering tied to lobbying efforts in support of Qatar; because Kaili enjoyed parliamentary immunity, her arrest was not on the original planning of the operation launched by Belgian authorities that day, but developments during the day led investigating judge Michel Claise (overall head of the operation) to conclude that Kaili was caught in flagrante delicto.

A suitcase of cash was found with her father upon his arrest, and bags of cash were found at her home.

The same day she was suspended from both the Socialists and Democratic Group with which she sits in the European Parliament and her national party PASOK.

As part of the investigation, Belgian Police raided 16 homes and detained at least four others including parliamentary assistant Francesco Giorgi (Kaili's life partner ), former MEP Antonio Panzeri (for whom Giorgi had worked at parliament, and with whom he had founded the human rights NGO "Fight Impunity"), and Kaili's father, Alexandros Kailis, who was arrested outside the hotel where he was staying with a suitcase of cash.