EU executive to rewrite conflict of interest rules

The European Commission has announced that it would clarify rules on conflicts of interest for former senior staff members who take up private sector posts and would reduce parachute payments.

"The current system is unsatisfactory," said an EU source involved in talks on rewriting the European Commission's code of conduct in this area on condition of anonymity.

"We have to be absolutely clear that there are no conflicts of interest," the source stressed, which means "defining in a stricter way what constitutes a conflict of interest."

The issue has come to a head after the commission's ethics committee forced former Irish internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy to relinquish his directorship of a London investment banking group.

There had been concerns he might have been in a position to profit from knowledge gleaned during his time helping Brussels reach decisions on how to restructure competition in the British banking market following huge state bailouts.

Campaigners and European parliament lawmakers nevertheless still accuse the commission of being too lax with regard to other ex-commissioners, such as Malta's Joe Borg and Germany's Guenther Verheugen, each of whom is involved in the vast and lucrative Brussels lobbying industry.

(Personal correspondence between Dr Borg and the EU executive made public last month by the European Commission stressed that Dr Borg had no conflict of interest in his new roles as a university lecturer and a part-time consultant with a Brussels-based public affairs consultancy firm, Fipra.)

The other side of the coin is the money the EU -- which is mainly funded by its 27 states -- pays former officials.

Germany media last month reported that 17 former commissioners were earning at least €96,000 a year even after they landed plum jobs.

McCreevy and Borg were each reported to be earning €11,000 per month.

A list obtained by AFP included Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, British Labour politician Peter Mandelson and French constitutional court member Jacques Barrot among the 17.

"That will form a part of the discussions," the EU source added. "We are very conscious of the bad publicity that has generated."

Campaigners argue that the EU is subsidising its former commissioners by ensuring their former pay is matched in the private sector. The EU says this is to help them resettle.

The basic monthly salary of a commissioner is around €20,300, excluding other perks, while the Open Europe think tank estimates that European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso makes as much as US President Barack Obama: 400,000 dollars per year.

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