EU Commission under pressure: rules in the gray area

The EU has been dealing with the corruption scandal and its aftermath for months. Now there are new allegations against a high-ranking official of the Commission. The EU Ombudswoman O’Reilly calls for clarification.

Henrik Hololei has been Director General for Mobility and Transport since 2015. When his management negotiated an important air transport agreement with Qatar, he not only accepted invitations to the emirate, had Qatar pay for expensive flights and hotel stays – he also approved everything himself.

Research by the magazine “Politico” brought the case to light in early March, drawing the EU Commission into the affair of Qatar and Morocco allegedly influencing political decisions in the European Parliament.

Self-approved in accordance with the rules

What makes the matter particularly explosive is that everything happened within the rules that apply to the Commission – so the Director-General had not even behaved in violation of the rules. The “Open Skies” agreement that his team was negotiating should allow Qatar “freedom of movement within European airspace,” emphasizes EU ombudswoman Emily O’Reilly in an interview with the ARD out.

“So there is at least the impression that there was a conflict of interest,” criticizes O’Reilly. She has asked the EU Commission for a comprehensive clarification of the case.

Just an isolated case?

O’Reilly is also concerned with the suspicion that Hololei could not be an isolated case. If Hololei accepted invitations from the other party during important negotiations and did not violate regulations, could there possibly have been other similar cases?

The Commission, an authority with thousands of employees, has a say in the allocation of huge sums of money. At the moment, for example, it is about the money from the reconstruction fund – after all, almost 750 billion euros.

O’Reilly says she’s “sure that in the years to come we’ll find out that some of the money went in the wrong direction.” But where should investigations begin? “You have to follow the money,” says O’Reilly.

Toothless “ethics panel”

When the serious allegations of corruption against members of the European Parliament became known, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recommended that Parliament set up an ethics committee against misconduct and referred to a corresponding three-person committee in the Commission.

O’Reilly does not consider this body to be a good role model. “People can’t act independently,” says the ombudswoman. They have to be commissioned to investigate something, and then they make a recommendation that isn’t made public.

In addition, the President herself decides whether to follow the committee’s recommendations – or not.

The control body checks largely within the framework of the Commission’s specifications. But what is the point of checking rules that allow a director-general to accept invitations from Qatar without a four-eyes principle while his directorate is negotiating with the same country? For O’Reilly it is clear: The possibilities of the ethics committee are too lax.

New function, same institution

After all, the Commission has apparently changed the rules. And Hololei resigned from his post a few days ago, but remains a member of the Commission.

The question remains whether others have acted as he did – O’Reilly also wants to know from the commission. “I hope not,” says the ombudswoman, although she doesn’t want to “judge too quickly.”

However, the fact that the Commission changed the rules she believes is an admission that there was a problem. How big the problem is will become clearer in the coming weeks, in the Commission and in Parliament, where many investigation results are still pending.

A year before the European elections, another enormous loss of confidence in the EU institutions threatens.