Inquiries into scandal of ‘influence-for-cash'

Zoran Thaler

Zoran Thaler was Slovenia's minister of foreign affairs from 1995 to 1997 in the government led by Janez Drnovšek, having been deputy foreign minister from 1990 to 1993. While he was foreign minister, Thaler succeeded in defusing tensions with Italy over claims by Italian citizens over property in Slovenia, so that Italy dropped its veto on Slovenia's EU candidacy. 

Thaler was impeached in May 1996. He was re-elected to parliament in December 1997 on the Liberal Democracy list. He became foreign minister again in 1997 in Drnovšek's third cabinet. He quit politics that year.

Chairman of Si.mobil, Slovenia's second largest mobile operator 2004-06, he was elected to the European Parliament in 2009 on the Socialists & Democrats list.

Adrian Severin

Adrian Severin is one of the better-known Romanian MEPs. He played an important role in Romania's post-transition government, serving as deputy prime minister for reform and president of the national privatisation agency. He served as minister for foreign affairs from 1996-97.

Severin was head of the Romanian Social-Democrat delegation of MEPs in the two years after Romania joined the EU. In 2007 he drafted a report with French centre-right MEP Alain Lamassoure on how to share out European Parliament seats under the Lisbon treaty.

In 2009 Severin expressed an interest in becoming the EU's foreign policy chief, a post which was earmarked for a politician from the centre-left Socialists & Democrats group. But he did not have the backing of the centre-right government in Romania.

Ernst Strasser

Ernst Strasser is a well-known figure in Austrian politics. Early in his political career he was one of the rising stars of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP).

Interior minister in 2000-04 under the then chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel, he resigned because of internal party disputes and concentrated on developing his business contacts.

In 2009, he was approached by Josef Pröll, currently Austria's finance minister and deputy chancellor, to head the ÖVP list for the European Parliament elections and subsequently became head of the ÖVP delegation in the European People's Party group.

As head of the ÖVP, Strasser was a member of the bureau of the European People's Party, a post he has now resigned from.

Strasser lists in his MEP's declaration of financial interests that he is the chief executive of two consulting firms, CCE Consulting GmbH and BCD GmbH.

The declaration also says that he is a member of the management board of G4S Security Services AG and Rail Holding AG. He resigned from these positions on Monday (21 March).