Not only my psychiatric knowledge but also my personal experience has prompted me to approach the events in the European Parliament from a different point of view. As a member of the European Parliament for five years from 1999 to 2004, I have known since then that the visits of thousands of representatives of interest groups or pressure groups or “lobbyists” to the premises of the European Parliament are probably more compared to 704 MEPs. This conclusion is not necessarily negative if the delicate profession of “lobbyist” was subject to strict rules of ethics, transparency and ethics. However, it is clear from recent events that this is not the case. On the contrary, it seems that the “toxicity” of the environment, directly or indirectly associated with negative behavior, fraud, psychopathologies, predominates.

An eminent English colleague, neurologist-psychiatrist and Foreign Secretary, Lord David Owen, in his book In Sickness and Power, describes in detail the “huge syndrome”. In particular, he mentions fourteen symptoms and believes that three of the fourteen are enough to confirm the diagnosis of the syndrome. He also points out, with specific references to well-known leaders, heads of state or prime ministers, that this syndrome appears only during the period of triumphant accession to power and, as a rule, recedes after its loss. Lord Owen argues that power can cause changes in a person’s mental state, which manifest themselves in the form of abusive behavior. Pride syndrome affects those who gain power and become intoxicated by it, that is, they become arrogant, arrogant, contemptuous, considering themselves above human limitations and any form of social norms.

Arrogance is not currently a medical term. It comes from Greek mythology, denoting a dangerous combination of self-confidence, ambition, arrogance, conceit, arrogance, traits that often lead to a misinterpretation of reality and ultimately to disastrous actions or decisions. Plato believed that the irrational “power of desires” leads people to the delusion of offensive acts. According to Owen, British prime ministers Lloyd George, Chamberlain, Thatcher and Blair all had pride syndrome, and several US presidents had varying degrees of related psychopathy.

When a sense of invulnerability and invincibility is established in the personality of authority, the meaning of rules, punishment and retribution is lost.

In psychiatry, for a reliable assessment of situations or behavior, it is important to consider in what environment, what person, at what point in time he did what he did. I dare say that, to a certain extent, legal science has a similar approach in the process of imputing a criminal act. Having already mentioned the “toxicity” of the environment, I will again use Lord Owen’s insights to describe which people are most vulnerable when they are in leadership positions and in power. It is, he argues, an acquired change in the personality of people in leadership positions. More specifically, the changes relate to boasting, arrogance, megalomania, excessive arrogance, unreasonable excess of measure, intoxication with power, indifference to everything human, insanity of greed, humiliation, contempt, cynicism that characterizes “offenders”.

Finally, with regard to the time of manifestation of offensive behavior, an important element is the gradual establishment in the personality of the offender of a feeling of invulnerability, invulnerability, invincibility. These people lose their sense of rules, punishment, nemesis and act like citizens above suspicion. And all of this is happening in a world that seems to have become a ruthless and unruly machine of shame, with modern empires of Profit for Profit’s sake, Strength for Power’s sake, Will for Will’s sake.

The psychiatric point of view in no way hints at the limited imputation or non-imputation of criminal acts due to possible psychopathology. He just wants to point out that the reliable disclosure of such behavior and actions, that is, name and guilt, is the responsibility not only of politicians, authorities and regulations, the media, but of all citizens when they perceive major or even minor incidents. daily insults.

Ms. Meni Malliori is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the Medical School of the University of Athens and a former Member of the European Parliament.