Campaign launched to 'close revolving door' of ex-EU commissioners

An alliance of lobby groups have launched an online campaign aimed, it says, to curtail the practice of former EU commissioners taking potentially lucrative jobs in the private sector as soon as they leave office.

They cite the case of former industry and enterprise commissioner Günter Verheugen who is said to be one of the six commissioners from the previous executive who have moved into private sector jobs and which "might entail conflicts of interest.”

The German, who was also vice president of the commission, is not alone.

Out of 13 commissioners that left in February 2010, others also took jobs in the private sector soon after leaving their EU posts.

The Brussels-based alliance highlight the cases of two other ex-commissioners, Irishman Charlie McCreevy's move to RyanAir and Bulgarian Meglena Kuneva's move to BNP Paribas, which it says also “give serious cause for concern.”

The body behind the new initiative, Alter-EU, the alliance for lobbying transparency and ethics regulation, says, "By launching his own lobby consultancy, Verheugen is blatantly violating the rules."

In a recent interview the former commissioner insisted that he "doesn't see he did anything wrong".

The alliance has now launched an online petition which it says is designed to "hold former commissioners to account".

A spokesman said, "By sending an email ordinary people can help to put pressure on commission president José Manuel Barroso and the commission to close the revolving door and to tighten up rules for ex-commissioners and former commission staff."

A spokesman for Friends of the Earth Europe, which is also involved, said, "This cyber action calls on the public to write to the European commission and to ask for tightening up the current rules regarding the employment of ex-commissioners.

"We want action to stop former commissioners cashing in on their privileged access to information by becoming lobbyists once they step down.

"The employment of former commissioners requires authorisation by the commission for one year after they leave office to prevent the misuse of information they have acquired in their role.

"But even the weak rules that exist are being violated.

"In the last year, the commission has allowed six former commissioners to take jobs as lobby advisers in companies or lobbying consultancies. One of these is Verheugen who was allowed to accept four separate lobby advisory jobs.

"He has now gone even further and set up his own lobbying consultancy which he did not declare to the commission! The commission is now assessing whether or not to authorise this job."

No-one from the commission was immediately available for comment.