The storm of indignation that exploded onto the scene earlier this week over a ‘non documented meeting’ that former EU commissioner Durão Barroso had with a current commissioner has fizzled to “nothing”.
Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker used the “nothing” word, saying: “We never said that Jose Manuel Barroso could not have meetings with commissioners and that commissioners would not be allowed to have meetings with the former president of the commission.”
He told reporters that Barroso “is not a gangster” and still his “friend”.
The assertions followed revelations by the man with whom Barroso met late last year at a hotel in Brussels that the meeting was just about two friends ‘getting together to have a beer’.
Jyrki Katainen told reporters: “He did not lobby me. We did not talk about a word of the bank” Goldman Sachs, which now employs Barroso.
An end to the matter? Perhaps. The EU Observer points out nonetheless points that there remain “discrepancies”.
Indeed, transparency watchdogs describe “so many discrepancies” – not least the fact that the ‘beer with Barroso’ was logged by Katainen in the meetings registry as a meeting with “the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS)”.
If it was indeed a private meeting, “why did he log it in the meetings register” at all, queries Margarida Silva of Corporate Europe Observatory, and then there is the question of why Katainen originally said the two men discussed ‘trade and defence matters’ (click here).
“We’re just confused”, Silva told the EU Observer. “At this point we need clarity”.
Competitions Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has thrown her own observations into the ring, saying the best policy when in office is simply “not to meet with lobbyists”.
Avoiding them makes her life “very easy”, she said.
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
