Europe’s Mr. Revolving Door

Günther Oettinger used to be known as the European Commission’s top schmoozer, spending more time in lobby meetings than any of his colleagues.  

Now he’s schmoozing on the other side with equal fervor — and with the approval of the EU. 

Since Oettinger left the Commission in 2019, he has piled up private sector jobs. He’s a lawyer. He has a consulting business. He advises giant consultancies like Deloitte. He chairs the advisory board of a German bank. He’s on the board of a real estate firm. He helps oversee a construction company. He’s trying to get on a Hungarian state science council. 

And that’s just a partial public list — his personal client list remains confidential. 

“I don’t want to play golf,” said Oettinger, a longtime member of Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who had stints leading the Commission’s work on energy, the digital economy and EU budget.

As he racks up the business cards, Oettinger is pushing the EU’s revolving door laws to the limit — and finding the limit doesn’t really exist. 

The EU’s past revolving-door scandals — including a former Commission president’s move to Goldman Sachs — have over the years inspired pledges for more institutional accountability. But while current rules require recent commissioners to seek approval from the Berlaymont for new roles, officials have yet to say “no” to Oettinger. 

The situation has renewed a debate over how effectively EU institutions — who love to promote values such as transparency and rule of law — police the behavior of their own departed senior officials. It’s a conversation that underscores concerns the EU’s reputation is taking a hit, coming at a time when the bloc is being brandished, fairly or not, as unaccountable and slow-moving on issues like coronavirus vaccines and reprimanding members’ anti-democratic behavior. 

Critics warn that a well-connected former commissioner rapidly collecting elite business posts risks furthering negative perceptions — even if Oettinger isn’t running afoul of EU rules. And transparency advocates say there’s no way to tell whether his behavior is above board, anyway: The approval process can seem like a formality and there’s no way to judge whether restrictions are respected.

Oettinger’s approach, they argue, has exposed troubling holes in the Commission’s rules for ex-members, who are barred for two years from lobbying the Commission on their former topics, yet almost never told not to take high-profile gigs.

“We cannot even see who his clients are,” said Nina Katzemich, a campaigner at German NGO LobbyControl. “Nobody can control this.”  

That makes it “impossible” to verify whether Oettinger is respecting lobbying rules, she added. “This is really ridiculous.”  

Business BFF

Business and politics have been intertwined throughout Oettinger’s career — and that’s how he likes it. 

“I’ve actually met everyone who has something to say, who is knowledgeable,” Oettinger told POLITICO in an interview. “I wanted to meet anyone who didn’t have a criminal record.” 

The former commissioner started his career in regional politics, serving as a member of the Baden-Württemberg parliament from 1984 until 2010. But for most of that period, he also worked as a lawyer and CEO of an audit and tax consultancy — only leaving the business when he became the Baden-Württemberg premier in 2005. 

Once in Brussels, he made a name for himself as the most business-friendly commissioner, once drawing criticism for flying to Budapest on a lobbyist’s private jet in 2016. 

As a member of the Juncker Commission, Oettinger held more meetings with lobbyists than any other commissioner or senior official, according to data gathered by Transparency International. He even handpicked a slate of lobbyists and corporate bigwigs to attend his own ‘mini Davos’ — the Europa Forum Lech — each year in Austria.

“He was like a fish in the water,” said one Commission official, describing Oettinger at meetings with business leaders. “They trusted him.”

The official defended Oettinger’s closeness with the private sector, insisting some of the then Commissioner’s meetings “were very tough” and that “he always spoke to all sides.”

Even as Oettinger became a popular guest at Brussels events, he also invested in his business links back home, often traveling to Baden-Württemberg to meet with local companies, unions and party chapters. 

The former commissioner says that listening to business concerns is part of the job. 

“I think the current Commission is not meeting enough with the business community,” Oettinger said. “Dialogue with business is important. And I have always sought it.”

Chairman of the Board

Now that Oettinger has left the Commission, he has joined the ranks of the businesspeople who once courted him, piling up jobs with the EU’s backing — raising eyebrows in Brussels along the way.

Under the Commission’s Code of Conduct, former members must notify the Commission for two years of any new professional activity. They are also barred from lobbying the Commission “on matters for which they were responsible within their portfolio” for that period of time. Often, the Berlaymont will approve a private sector role with restrictions, like a prohibition on sharing information from Commission meetings. Sometimes, the Commission asks an ethics panel for input, but it doesn’t have to follow its advice.

The Commission has signed off on a wide variety of requests by Oettinger. 

The Commission authorized Oettinger’s request to work as a lawyer and start his own political and economic consulting business in Germany. While the Commission is seeking a list of Oettinger’s clients and contracts throughout 2021, the information is set to remain confidential.  

The Commission has also approved Oettinger’s request to join Deloitte Germany’s advisory council — despite the fact that the firm held two meetings with Oettinger in 2016 and that Deloitte branches in other countries have done significant work for the Commission. A Deloitte spokesperson in Germany said the advisory council “fosters broad discussions regarding current economic and sociopolitical topics.” 

Besides advising Deloitte, the Commission greenlit Oettinger’s wish to join the global advisory board of Kekst CNC — a consultancy listed on the EU’s Transparency Register and whose clients include tobacco giant Philip Morris International. The move concerned the EU’s Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, who noted the Commission would be working to revise tobacco-related legislation in 2021.

Oettinger flatly rejected any notion he would be involved in tobacco lobbying. 

“I have not, I do not and I will not act in any way for the tobacco industry or Philip Morris,” he said. 

Then there’s the scattered list of board appointments the former Commissioner has been collecting. 

He’s the advisory board chair for a Hamburg-based bank, Donner und Reuschel. He’s on the supervisory board at asset management firm Amundi Deutschland. And he’s on the supervisory board for real estate company CG Elementum. He’s also on the advisory board for a Hamburg-based logistics company, HAM-LOG-GRUPPE. 

Over at Herrenknecht, a construction equipment company, Oettinger is vice chair of the supervisory board. Also on the Herrenknecht board: former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. 

Oettinger hasn’t gotten everything he’s asked for, though. A controversial 2020 request to join Hungary’s National Science Policy Council, which advises the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, is still pending. Oettinger said he will soon submit responses to questions from the Commission’s Secretariat-General on the Hungarian role. 

It may seem like an overburdened resume. And despite the formal restrictions that often come attached to the Commission’s approvals for these roles, critics have argued that some include potential conflicts of interest. 

But Oettinger rejects any insinuation of conflict.

“How much I work is my business,” he said, noting that some of his posts are honorary, while most of the boards he sits on only meet four or six times a year. 

And, he noted, his post-Commission work focuses on Germany, not the EU bubble in Brussels. 

“I always intended to return to the consulting profession, but not in the sense of lobbying in Brussels, but to pick up in Germany where I had been,” he said. 

Polarizing debate 

That’s not the way everyone sees it in Brussels.

While there’s agreement that ex-commissioners like Oettinger can pursue business interests of their choosing, good government advocates and some MEPs argue the EU’s current system is too opaque to judge whether those interests actually clash with EU priorities. The result, they say, is an erosion of trust in the EU’s independence. 

European Parliament Vice President Katarina Barley said she had noticed the trend of the former commissioners who “seem to have made it a habit to accumulate a whole plethora of advisory and consulting functions.”

This is a personal decision, said Barley, a member of Germany’s Social Democratic Party who has worked on EU transparency issues. “It is ultimately down to an individual’s own ethical compass whether or not to accept positions, such as advising bodies of governments that undermine EU values,” she said via email.

But the point when a line is crossed, Barley said, is “where contacts are being used to influence Commission decision making. This is, however, very hard to scrutinize since the current Commission procedure lacks accountability and transparency.” 

As an example, critics point to the Commission’s ethics committee, a three-person body appointed by the Commission that offers non-binding advice. They also note how infrequently the Commission turns down employment requests from ex-officials. Out of 363 requests for post-public office employment of former Commission officials in 2019, only three were rejected, according to data obtained by Corporate Europe Observatory. 

The most recent eyebrow-raising case was the April announcement that law firm Latham & Watkins has hired Carles Esteva Mosso — currently deputy director general for state aid at DG Competition — as a partner in its antitrust and competition practice.

In response to this practice, some MEPs are pushing for a single, independent EU ethics body that would have investigative and enforcement powers, including in revolving-door cases. And while Commission President Ursula von der Leyen supported the idea of creating one ethics body for all EU institutions at the beginning of her term, it remains unclear whether the project could get sufficient political backing. 

Ombudsman O’Reilly has warned that “recently several cases have attracted a lot of negative public attention, which damages the perception of the EU as a whole.”

“There needs to be a shift in attitudes so that people considering moving from the public to the private sector reflect on how their new post might damage public trust,” O’Reilly said. “This reflex is not yet there.”

Indeed, some former commissioners defended the existing system. 

“I feel comfortable with the rules the Commission has,” former Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes, who serves on the board of directors of Salesforce and was previously on Uber’s public policy advisory board, said in an email. 

In response to questions from POLITICO, the Commission defended its procedures.

“There is no quantitative limit to the number of activities that a former Commissioner can perform after her/his mandate,” it said in a statement. “Post-mandate activities are thoroughly scrutinized by the European Commission to protect public interests and avoid conflicts of interest.”

Oettinger, meanwhile, has pointed out that former commissioners already have more restrictions than parliamentarians — warning that stricter rules could deter people from seeking public office. 

“Some people may hope: ‘Once you’ve been a commissioner, you’re not allowed to do anything after that,’” he said. “Then I would like to see those with qualifications still going into the Commission.”