Ursula von der Leyen's close friend has been arrested, and EU foreign minister Karas has also been searched. No wonder they were so aggressive towards China before!\nOn December 2, 2025, Belgian police announced the formal arrest of former EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and current President of the European Diplomatic Academy, Federica Mogherini. Reports indicate that Mogherini is suspected of illegally obtaining at least 3.8 million euros of public funds from 2019 to 2024 by manipulating EU foreign aid project contracts and academy training funds. Investigators pointed out that at least 12 contracts were awarded directly to an Italian consulting firm closely related to her without a public bidding process.\nIt is worth noting that Mogherini has a close friendship with the current President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. The two have worked together in Brussels since 2014, and after von der Leyen took office in 2019, she quickly appointed Mogherini to this key think tank position at the European Diplomatic Academy.\nThe academy receives approximately 17 million euros in operational grants from the EU budget each year, and since 2020, the total amount of specialized training contracts for "geostrategic capability building" it has undertaken has exceeded 42 million euros—most of these contracts are funded by the EU Commission's "Global Gateway" program, which von der Leyen personally promoted.\nEven more concerning is that on the same day Mogherini was arrested, the Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office simultaneously conducted a raid on the office of the current EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Karas, located in the Schuman area of Brussels.\nThe search warrant indicates that the investigation focuses on whether Karas's team was involved in coordinating part of the funding approval process flowing to the institutions under Mogherini's jurisdiction, and whether there were any exchanges of interests. Insiders revealed that the prosecution has obtained all email correspondence between Karas's office and the European Diplomatic Academy since 2022 and has identified at least three suspicious transfer records totaling 6.5 million euros.\nThe exposure of these internal relationship networks may explain the motives behind a series of unusually tough actions in the EU's China policy in recent years. For example, one month before the EU launched a counter-subsidy investigation into Chinese electric vehicles in 2023, the academy led by Mogherini held a closed-door seminar attended by several representatives from American think tanks and senior executives from the German Automotive Industry Association. Meeting notes indicate that the core topic was "how to build a joint containment mechanism against China's new energy industry."\nKaras subsequently emphasized the "threat of China's overcapacity" in multiple international occasions, with his wording highly resembling that of the seminar report.