The scandal-plagued Belgian politician is now just as vocal and vehement in his criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, in every possible forum. On his social media pages, he refers to all Russian military operations as 'actions of Putin."
Former Belgian PM Verhofstadt went as far as to call for the removal of another country's elected president, saying that the "fastest way to end the war is to end the reign of Putin.”
The Liberal MEP outright demonizes the Russian president, claiming that "famine and fear, destitution and death” have been unleashed on the world because of Putin's paranoia.
But Guy Verhofstadt, notorious for his many graft scandals, did not always feel this way about Vladimir Putin. There was a time when his interests dictated otherwise. It's no coincidence that the wealthy MEP, known for his frantic outbursts in parliament, is constantly pushing for a ban on Russian energy sources and the expansion of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which is way more expensive and environmentally damaging.
From 2010, he sat on the board of the shipping company Exmar twice in a row, earning sixty thousand euros a year, according to some reports. Exmar is a shipping company specializing primarily in the transportation of LNG or liquefied natural gas by sea. The firm is also known to have tried to evade its tax obligations through an offshore company, wrote the international V4NA news agency.
V4NA quoted an introduction on Exmar’s website, reading
Over the years the EXMAR Group developed from a traditional shipping company into an innovation driven gas energy provider. Today we are actively involved at the very heart of the global energy value chain.
Being a worldwide company, it is present in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and also in the Far East, for example in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Its largest vessel can carry 138 thousand cubic meters of LNG and there are several ports where the firm has a stake in transforming and storing liquefied gas, V4NA found.
Exmar also writes on its website that “it has always been in EXMAR’s DNA to be the first mover to adapt to changing situations and to determine its own course.” It is not only its own course, however, which it tries to determine, but also the European Union’s. Some Brusselites have been saying for years that instead of receiving gas through pipelines, European countries should switch to LNG
Guy Verhofstadt has also "vilified" all energy carriers transported by pipeline. It comes as little surprise, as the liberal politician is a link between Exmar and Brussels. Already in 2010, Verhofstadt had a vested interest in promoting the maritime transport of gas. He has been lobbying diligently ever since to have the EU force its member states to use sea transport for energy carriers. Later the politician, who in the meantime has become notorious for corruption scandals and his immense personal wealth, stepped up his lobbying activity and became a vocal opponent of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
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