photo: Politico.eu; Martin Divisek; EPA-EFE/The leadership of the European transport sector has been shaken by the Qatargate affair. Maja Bakran Marcich is now in charge
The scandal known as Qatargate, in which MEPs had their travel and accommodation paid for by Qatar and other non-European countries, also hit the European Commission.
In the spring of 2023, Henrik Hololei, the top transport official at DG Move, resigned over his decision to allow the Qatari government to pay for upgrade tickets on Qatar Airways between 2015 and 2021, even though the European Commission was at the time negotiating aviation liberalisation agreements with Qatar on behalf of member states.
An internal investigation is now under way into the extent to which this behaviour constitutes a conflict of interest for euro officials. The European Commission initially defended Hololei, insisting that he had not formally broken any rules. At the same time, however, it began to tighten internal rules to ensure that such incidents could not occur. During the investigation, Hololei became a policy adviser without management responsibilities in DG INTPA, the Commission unit responsible for the EU's international partnership and development policy to reduce poverty, ensure sustainable development and promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law worldwide.
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Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has pledged to push for an ethics watchdog to investigate and punish misconduct in all EU institutions. While the Parliament is undergoing reforms in the wake of Qatargate to avoid future corruption problems, the rules for European Commission and Council officials are only now being addressed.
Henrik Hololei and his team were instrumental in the inclusion of the Central European countries' proposal to include high-speed rail in the TEN-T network. Hololei's deputy, Maja Bakran Marcich from Croatia, has been put in charge of DG Move.
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