The UNIOP-INUSOP affair was a Belgian political scandal

Political scandal

A political scandal is a kind of political corruption that is exposed and becomes a scandal, in which politicians or government officials are accused of engaging in various illegal, corrupt, or unethical practices...

 of the early 1990s

1990s

File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...

, in which it was alleged that government ministers

Minister (government)

A minister is a politician who holds significant public office in a national or regional government. Senior ministers are members of the cabinet....

 from the Socialist Party overpaid for political studies in the late 1980s.

The affair is named after the polling institute UNIOP (Universitair Instituut voor Opiniepeilingen) - INUSOP (Institut Universitaire de Sondage d'Opinion), which was closely related to the Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Vrije Universiteit Brussel

The Vrije Universiteit Brussel is a Flemish university located in Brussels, Belgium. It has two campuses referred to as Etterbeek and Jette.The university's name is sometimes abbreviated by "VUB" or translated to "Free University of Brussels"...

 and Université Libre de Bruxelles

Université Libre de Bruxelles

The Université libre de Bruxelles is a French-speaking university in Brussels, Belgium. It has 21,000 students, 29% of whom come from abroad, and an equally cosmopolitan staff.-Name:...

.

Among those whom prosecutors sought to charge in 1994 were foreign minister Willy Claes

Willy Claes

Willem Werner Hubert "Willy" Claes was the eighth Secretary General of NATO and a Belgian politician. He was a member of the Flemish Socialist Party....

, former Brussels region Premier Philippe Moureaux

Philippe Moureaux

Philippe Moureaux is a Belgian politician, senator, mayor of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, and professor of economic history at the Université Libre de Bruxelles....

 and former defense minister Guy Coëme

Guy Coëme

Guy Coëme is a Francophone Belgian politician for the Socialist Party .Coëme served as minister of defence in the government Martens VIII and IX. In the first cabinet Dehaene, he was promoted to deputy prime minister and served as minister of transport...

. A parliamentary panel judged, however, that sufficient evidence was available to charge only Coëme. He was convicted in 1996 in a Supreme Court trial, but a later decision by the European Court of Human Rights

European Court of Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...

judged his trial to be unfair.