Brussels (AFP) – Former European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso on Tuesday accused Brussels of discrimination after it ordered an ethics probe into his new role at US investment bank Goldman Sachs.
“Not only are these actions discriminatory but they appear to be inconsistent with decisions taken in respect of other former members of the Commission,” Barroso said in a letter to Jean-Claude Juncker, his successor in the top Brussels job.
In the sternly worded letter dated Tuesday, Barroso deplored claims “that the mere fact of working with Goldman Sachs raises questions of integrity.”
These “baseless and wholly unmerited” claims are “discriminatory against me and against Goldman Sachs,” he said.
The probe, which Juncker notified to the European Union’s official watchdog on Monday, marked a significant U-turn by the Commission which had previously defended Barroso.
Juncker also said Barroso will now be received at the Commission, the executive arm of the 28-nation bloc, as a simple lobbyist rather than with the pomp and protocol due a former head.
Barroso said he took particular offence to the “specific suggestion … that Goldman Sachs is employing me as a lobbyist and adviser in relation to the forthcoming Brexit discussions.”
“I have not been engaged to lobby on behalf of Goldman Sachs and I do not intend to do so,” Barroso said.
-‘Morally unacceptable’-
The Barroso job controversy has caused especially heated reactions in France and on Tuesday French President Francois Hollande threw his weight behind the Brussels probe.
“When you know that Goldman Sachs was one of the reasons for the difficulties we encountered” during the financial crisis, “that justifies a procedure,” said Hollande on a trip to Bucharest.
Hollande has previously attacked Barroso’s appointment at the US investment bank as “morally unacceptable”.
Goldman Sachs was heavily involved in selling complex financial products, including high-risk sub-prime mortgages that many blame for causing the global financial crisis in 2008.
Critics believe the company was also key to the complex finance mechanisms that helped Greece hide the true state of its public finances in the lead-up to the debt crisis.
Barroso headed the Commission from 2004 to 2014, overseeing membership for several former communist states in Eastern Europe, the response to the global financial crash and the ensuing eurozone debt crisis.
When he was hired in July, Goldman Sachs said that Barroso’s arrival was “nothing to do with the outcome of the Brexit vote.”
At the time, the Commission said Barroso did not have to inform Juncker about the job because he had been through an 18-month “cooling-off” period since leaving and it was safe to assume he no longer had access to privileged information or influence.
But it added he would still be bound by EU rules of professional secrecy.
Asked why Juncker changed his position, a Commission spokesman said he had needed “some time to think” before moving forward.
A group of French leftist and Green MEPs on Tuesday said the EU’s highest court should determine if Barroso’s hiring was in violation of the “general interest” of EU citizens.
Barroso’s new job is an “unacceptable conflict of interest” intended to help Goldman Sachs during Brexit, they charged.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.