EU watchdog bids to block officials selling skills to private sector

A template to prevent senior EU officials selling their expertise to the private sector when they retire, and putting the citizen at a disadvantage, has been put forward by the EU’s Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly.

She warned that international experience of this revolving-door phenomena had shown that senior staff could become corrupted and citizens’ trust lost — as a result, it was important to ensure this did not happen in Brussels.

An investigation by her office following complaints from a number of organisations found that while rules had improved, much more needed to be done to make them more robust.