photo of von der Leyen com o texto "Revolving doors and far-right ties: Controversial figures among new EU Commission nominees"

New EU Commission: join us exposing conflicts of interest

English

Dear friends, 


We've been busy over the last couple of months digging and researching into the new European Commissioner candidates. What we found was shocking, but unfortunately not surprising.

Revolving doors, blatant conflicts of interest, far right ties, it’s all there in the distribution of portfolios announced earlier this week by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. After uncertainty and delays, it was finally revealed who is getting what. We selected the eight most shameful examples but, boy, was it a tough competition!

Here are the top three:

  • Massive revolving door gets financial services: Right after being Minister of Finance, Albuquerque (Portugal) moved to the UK-based debt collector Arrow Global, which was handling €300 million of Portuguese bad debts. Now, she was rewarded with the ‘financial services and the savings and investment union’ portfolio.
  • From lobbyist to Commissioner: Marta Kos (Slovenia) has been working as a Senior Adviser at Kreab, one of the biggest big business lobbying consultancies. Kreab's corporate clients include Amazon, Google, and BP, as well as banks and chemical manufacturers.
  • Far right vice presidency: Raffaele Fitto, from Giogia Meloni’s Brother’s of Italy got rewarded big time for having supported von der Leyen’s election on her second term. In spite of having been involved in several trials for bribery and corruption, he not only got the ‘cohesion and reforms’ portfolio, but also became the first vice president commissioner from the far right.

We all have a right to know who the new commissioners are that will make important decisions on our behalf. We want a Commission which acts in the interests of the European people and environment, not corporations. To help try and keep the pressure on, we need to continue scrutinising the European Commission and to do so we need your support. Please consider donating to keep our work going.

In solidarity,


The CEO Team

Kat, Belén, Vicky, Kenneth, Olivier, Nina, Kees, Karin, Pascoe, Hans, Joana, Bram, Marcella and Rik.

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