On Tuesday 28 February, the European Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, confirmed that she had launched an investigation into how the European Commission dealt with the 'revolving door' career move of José Manuel Barroso to the merchant bank Goldman Sachs.
In a letter to Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on 24 February, the Ombudsman said that she had received a complaint on 3 February from a collective of European civil servants calling for sanctions for the former Commission President over his move to the bank (see EUROPE 11724). The plaintiffs accuse Juncker's Commission of failing to respond to their letter dated 12 October 2016 concerning the online petition that gathered 150,000 signatures and of failing to make a formal decision regarding Barroso's new activities.
O'Reilly said that the complaint was admissible and has therefore decided to launch an investigation. She considers that the Commission did not return a reasoned decision following the opinion of the ad hoc ethical committee, which found that Barroso had not broken any of the rules of the Commissioners' code of conduct.
The Ombudsman has questions regarding the composition of the ethical committee (is it sufficiently independent?) and why it is not able to investigate on its own initiative.
In response to the outrage caused by Barroso's career move, Juncker proposed extending the latency period (during which Commissioners may not take up major positions in businesses after they have left office) from 18 months at the moment to two years for former Commissioners and to three years for former Presidents of the Commission. However, O'Reilly takes the view that this extension of the withdrawal period would not prevent jobs for ex-Commissioners in the private sector from creating ethical issues. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)