Spotlight: EU to tighten rules on "revolving door" cases after Barroso row

European Union (EU) institutions have recently stepped up efforts to tighten rules on the so-called "revolving door" cases, after former European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso's recruitment in Goldman Sachs attracted public discontent.

In a non-binding resolution adopted Thursday, Members of European Parliament (MEPs) commanded the EU Ombudsman to open an inquiry into Barroso's appointment as non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs International.

EU Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly was asked to continue her work on so-called "revolving door" cases, in which former senior EU officials accept private sector jobs shortly after leaving their posts, leading to questions of conflicts of interest.

MEPs argued that the scope for conflicts of interest in policy-making were much broader, and that greater care needed to be paid to this issue when appointing candidates to positions, regardless of which EU institution.

The resolution passed overwhelmingly by 557 votes in favor to 24 against, with 44 abstentions.

The former European Commission president caught public attention in July when he joined the U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs some 20 months after leaving the position as the EU executive chief. More than 150,000 EU staff signed a petition in October asking Barroso be stripped of his pension.

Barroso has faced wide criticism for his choice inside or outside the EU institutions, with even his successor, current President Jean-Claude Juncker, questioning the ethics of Barroso's decision in a video interview published by the EU institute in September, and going so far as to suggest that Goldman Sachs was a contributor to the financial crisis that began in 2007.

In his defense, Barroso wrote to Juncker in September denying unethical behavior, calling the claims "baseless and wholly unmerited...discriminatory against me and against Goldman Sachs."

The U.S. bank noted that the former president had observed an 18-month restriction period, or the so-called "cooling period", after leaving office at the European Commission before taking the job.

However, critics argued that the current regulation is too lax and leaves space for a "revolving door" between the EU executive and business.

In an effort to calm a public uproar over the "revolving door" cases, the European Commission Wednesday proposed to prolong the period during which top officials have to seek permission before moving on to a new job.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Juncker suggested expanding the period to three years for ex-presidents, and two years for all other members of the college.

"In the light of recent experience made with members of the previous commission, our code of conduct should be tightened in order to set the highest ethical standards possible for cases of conflict of interest," he said.

Meanwhile, he stressed, "tighter rules are certainly not sufficient to bring about acceptable ethical behavior in all cases. But they are an indispensable starting point."

The EU ombudsman on Wednesday welcomed the commission's announcement, but said she would continue to monitor the situation.

Emily O'Reilly stressed the need for more far-reaching measures to regulate former EU senior officials' behaviors, including more detail on how the rules should be interpreted and the possibility of sanctions.

The EU Ombudsman investigates complaints about maladministration in the institutions and bodies of the European Union. Emily O'Reilly was re-elected European Ombudsman by the Parliament at its plenary Strasbourg session on Dec.16, 2014. Enditem