MEP friendship groups offer 'backdoor' for pariah regimes

MEPs who want to circumvent public scrutiny when dealing with foreign regimes and governments are setting up so-called friendship groups.

These unregulated bodies have mushroomed over the years, causing headaches for official MEP delegations, while giving shady government figures a valuable lobbying foothold inside the European Parliament.

Friendship groups do not represent the European Parliament - but are sometimes quoted in local media as if they had official status, including...