Commission
blocks EU staff from delivering petition
By ALEKSANDRA
ERIKSSON
BRUSSELS, TODAY,
09:22
The
European Commission has refused to accept a petition drafted by EU
employees urging it to end the “revolving door” between its top
management and big business.
The appeal was
launched after former commission president Jose Manuel Barroso landed
a top job at US investment bank Goldman Sachs, and has now been
signed by 152,000 people.
The European
Commission didn't want to receive signatures to a petition by its own
employees, calling for more stringent rules on EU top management.
(Photo: Aleksandra Eriksson)
But security guards
stopped the petitioners from entering commission headquarters on
Wednesday (12 October).
A delegation from
the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation
(Alter-EU) received the same treatment when trying to deliver a
similar petition , signed by 63,000, moments later.
The two petitions
have called for strong measures to be taken against Barroso, whose
new employers were heavily implicated in both the global and the
Greek financial crises.
They want to see
Barroso’s pension rights forfeited and EU rules on the limits of
conduct of former commissioners sharpened.
Under the current
framework, EU officials are free to take up any job after a "cooling
off" period of 18 months after they leave office.
Barroso's successor,
Jean-Claude Juncker, has referred the case to an advisory ethics
committee, but only after the EU ombudsman questioned whether he
really had done everything to verity that the appointment was in line
with the ethical obligations laid down in the EU treaties.
Juncker has also
launched another probe on former competition commissioner Neelie
Kroes, a member of Barroso’s cabinet, after leaked documents showed
she had failed to declare directorship of an offshore company based
in the Bahamas.
But NGOs say the EU
executive should have acted when Kroes took up a job with tech firm
Uber earlier this year after promoting their interests during her
time in office.
Lobby group Alter-EU
has lodged a complaint of maladministration over this, and a similar
case involving former trade commissioner Karel De Gucht.
Juncker has stated
that the EU executive is mulling changes to the commissioners' code
of conduct, but has yet to announce concrete proposals.
EU employees and
NGOs say the commission is doing too little, too late.
Glorified photo
opportunity
The EU staff want to
remain anonymous, both for fear of retaliation but also “because we
represent the people of the street”, one of them said.
It’s the first
time that EU workers have publicly criticised their leadership.
They say they are
deeply committed to the EU and tired of their bosses giving them a
bad name.
He said
representatives of the EU employees and NGOs had eventually been
invited to meet with the commission’s secretary-general, Alexander
Italianer, on Wednesday afternoon.
“But that’s not
what we asked for,” the employee said. ”We want to see Juncker -
he's the only one who can change the rules.”
Margarida Silva
attended the meeting on behalf of Alter-EU and was also disappointed.
“When Alexander
Italianer called us up for a meeting, we thought they would have
something to say, that it would be an opportunity to open up a
dialogue,” the transparency campaigner told EUobserver. “Then we
realised this was just a photo opportunity for the commission.”
Dutch socialist MEP
Dennis De Jong, co-chair of the European parliament’s intergroup on
integrity, joined protesters outside the commission building on
Wednesday.
He told this website
the commission had angered the parliament as well by sending Pierre
Moscovici to answer MEPs’ questions on the code of conduct of
commissioners.
Moscovici, a French
socialist, is considered a progressive member of the college.
“But he’s not
even responsible for these questions, which was his line of defence
in our debate,” De Jong said.
The Dutch politician
said the commission was out of touch with public opinion, which
didn’t accept any longer cosy relationships between politics and
business.
“Business as usual
is over,” De Jong said.
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