Former president of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso did not violate the integrity and reserve rules laid down in the commissioners’ code of conduct when he accepted a highly controversial job at investment bank Goldman Sachs, but his choice was unwise, said the European Commission’s ad hoc ethics committee in a report dated Wednesday 26 October that was made public on Monday 31 October (see EUROPE 11639).
Based on information provided by Barroso in a letter to the current president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, and in the light of the code of conduct rules, the committee says there is not sufficient reason to establish a violation of the duty of integrity and reserve laid down in Article 245 (2) of the Treaty. Its opinion is non-binding, but will be taken into account by the European Commission when it decides in the near future whether to take any measures.
Juncker sent the question to the ethics committee in September, following the wave of indignation generated by the announcement that his predecessor would be working at Goldman Sachs. The US investment bank has been pilloried for its alleged role in kicking off the subprime mortgage crisis in the US and the Greek debt crisis that risked jeopardising the eurozone.
The ethics committee said Barroso should have been aware and informed that in acting like this, he would generate criticism and risk damaging the European Commission’s reputation, and that of the European Union as a whole. They say Barroso did not demonstrate the good judgment one might expect from someone who has held a high-responsibility position for many years. The report says the rules were not flouted, but it was not the ethics committee’s job to determine whether the code of conduct is strict enough.
The media storm is certainly a pertinent indicator, says the ethics committee, but not sufficient in itself to conclude that ethical rules have been violated, noting that Goldman Sachs operates within the law.
Barroso's new job will certainly have a connection with his previous post at the helm of the Commission, the committee recognises, particularly because it was under Barroso that the Commission had to start reform of the crisis-ridden banking sector.
The rules are that during 18 months after their job as a European commissioner, they must ask permission from their former employer before joining the private sector and this period was respected, the committee points out, since more than 18 months have passed since Barroso left Brussels (November 2014) and the announcement of his controversial new job.
The Commission will give itself time. The European Commission will now give itself the time to examine the committee’s conclusions. Commission spokesperson Margaritis Schinas said that as promised and out of concern for transparency, the European Commission has published the report on its website and would now be carefully examining it before making any decisions about appropriate measures. He said that that the ethics committee had not yet finalised its report on the Neelie Kroes case. Former competition commissioner Kroes is accused of hiding the fact during her time as commissioner that she was on the board of an offshore company in the Bahamas (see EUROPE 11630). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)