On Thursday 19 July, the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) expressed its “strong concerns” to the European Commission about the potential conflicts of interest created by some of the professional roles exercised by the former European Commissioner, Jonathan Hill.
The CEO flags up Mr Hill’s roles as a senior advisor to the Swiss banking group, UBS, since the end of May 2018, which the organisation considers should be subject to a probe by the Commission's ethics committee, as well as Mr Hill’s activities at Aviva, Deloitte and Iberdrola.
The Commission has therefore been requested to assess whether these roles are compatible with Article 245 of the Treaty on the Functioning on the European Union (TFEU), which demands that former Commissioners respect their duty to behave with integrity and discretion, without time limits, after they have ceased to hold office.
Lord Hill failed to notify the Commission at the end of 2016 that he had set up the Prosperity UK company, which organises conferences. This initiative was covered by the 18-month cooling off period, which has now been extended to two years (see EUROPE 11951) and is included in the Commissioners' code conduct.
The CEO points out that UBS has declared that in 2017 it had spent at least €1.25 million on lobbying activities at the European institutions in Brussels.
Lord Hill resigned from the Commission at the end of June 2016, after the Brexit victory during the British referendum (see EUROPE 11581). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)