Former EU commission president lobbies for Goldman Sachs

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Jose Manuel Barroso, the former president of the European Commission, has been lobbying the current European Union executive on behalf of his new employer Goldman Sachs – despite previously saying he wouldn't.

The revelation comes after a letter was made public which showed that the current EU commission jobs and growth Vice-President Jyrki Katainen met with Barroso in Brussels in October 2017.

Jose Manuel Barroso the former president of the European Commission, with his successor Jean-Claude Juncker. /CGTN Photo.

In the EU commission's records it was listed as a meeting between Vice-President Katainen and 'The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS)' on the European Union's transparency register, which logs lobbying encounters.

The letter, which exposes that it was the former EU commission president who attended the meeting, was sent from Katainen to a researcher named Margarida Silva at the Corporate Europe Observatory, an organization investigating lobbying practices.

"Mr. Barroso and I were the only participants to this meeting, where we mostly discussed trade and defense matters," wrote Vice-President Katainen.

It is explained that Mr. Barroso was the one who requested the meeting but little more is known about what was discussed.

Mr. Barroso (R) poses with European Commission Vice president Vice-President Katainen /CGTN Photo./CGTN Photo.

Katainen does not "take notes in meetings and I did not do so at this meeting either. For these reasons, there are no documents regarding this event."

Barroso served as president of the European Commission between 2004 and 2014 after two years as prime minister of Portugal.

He took a job at the US investment bank Goldman Sachs in 2016 as a non-executive chairman.

The appointment to the bank didn't only raise eyebrows in Brussels, it was considered so questionable that an ad hoc ethics committee was set up to look into it.

That was because Barroso oversaw the EU commission's handling of the Greek debt crisis which Goldman Sachs is alleged to have profited from.

European Commission Vice president Vice-President Katainen./ CGTN Photo.‍

The ethics committee found there was no evidence of wrongdoing on Mr. Barroso's side for taking the Goldman Sachs job, but the current president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker received a letter from his predecessor when it was announced that he had "not engaged to lobby on behalf of Goldman Sachs and [did] not intend to do so."

In light of the fresh revelation of the October meeting, European Commission chief spokesperson Margaritis Schinas defended Vice-President Katainen by saying, "It was entirely legal and this meeting took place 36 months after the former president of this house and the limit was 18 months for Mr. Barroso to be excluded from lobbying."

A group of lobbying observers known as Alter-EU has written to the EU commission "lodging a complaint of maladministration" in light of the revelation of the meeting between Mr. Barroso and Vice-President Katainen.