Diederik Samsom, one of the architects behind the EU’s Green Deal, has breached the ethics code of the European Commission, according to a report by Follow the Money.
Samsom left the Commission earlier this month after five years. Until early February, he was the right-hand man of EU Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra and his predecessor, former ‘climate pope’ Frans Timmermans, now leader of the Green-Labour Party in the Netherlands. Samsom’s former bosses share the ultimate goal of completing entirely the bloc’s economy’s decarbonisation.
Last Wednesday, the Dutch state-owned firm Gasunie announced Samsom was to become chair of its supervisory board. Under Commission rules, any former official seeking a post closely related to work done within the EU apparatus needs prior approval from the EU executive.
Former EU official Samsom neglected to do this.
He told Politico: “Due to an error on my part, the position was not correctly notified to the Commission in a timely manner. I very much regret that.”
According to reports, Samsom said he had ‘realized’ his error that same morning, and by that evening had submitted a formal request to Brussels.
“This non-executive supervisory role on the supervisory board of a state-owned enterprise does not present any potential conflict of interest with my previous role as a Commission official. So I will await in confidence the Commission’s procedure, which has now been initiated,” he declared.
The Commission now has 30 days to decide whether to forbid him from taking the job, or to place conditions on his engagement with Gasunie.
Samsom was expected to take up his role as board chair on Monday.
While Gasunie’s core business is delivering natural gas to Germany and the Netherlands, Samsom lauded his new employer’s bonafides in helping facilitate the green transition.
“By using, expanding and deploying its infrastructure in a smart way for hydrogen, green gas, heat and CO2,” Gasunie is “making a contribution to energy security and achieving the climate goals in the Netherlands and Germany,” Samsom was quoted as saying in the firm’s press release.
Vicky Cann, researcher for Corporate Europe Observatory—a group researching and campaigning to challenge corporate and lobby group influence in EU policy making—remarked to Politico on the official’s hypocrisy and disregard for the rules, pointing out that it is not an isolated incident:
Yet another shocking Commission revolving door case which raises significant questions about how seriously officials take the rules. New jobs should not be announced by new employers if the role has not been authorized, and for such a senior official to do this sets a really bad example and piles pressure on an already-weak Commission ethics system to acquiesce and accept the role. This also could make a mockery of any conditions the Commission might choose to apply, as presumably contracts have already been signed.
