EU STAFF FIGHT BACK AT BARROSO GOLDMAN APPOINTMENT

Disgruntled EU civil servants are demanding the Commission change its ethics code and impose stricter sanctions on former officials that breach it.

They handed in a petition with over 150,000 signatures to all three EU institutions on Wednesday (October 12) to protest former Commission President José Manuel Barroso’s recent appointment to the board of US investment bank Goldman Sachs.

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from the United Left group led a protest outside the Commission’s Berlaymont headquarters to tie in with the handover, donning masks of Barroso and former commissioners Neelie Kroes and Karel De Gucht, who have also been implicated in revolving doors scandals.