EU fat-cat gets €100k a year pension from Brussels - despite RAKING it in at Goldman Sachs
A BRUSSELS fat-cat is receiving a huge European Union (EU) pension despite still raking it in at his lucrative banking job, it has been revealed.
Jose Manuel Barroso, the former president of the European Commission, personally asked his for his eye-watering EU pension to be paid early, despite his ongoing role as chairman of Goldman Sachs International.
Mr Barroso’s Brussels current EU pension of £6,000 per month (£72,000-pet-year) has been blasted as “morally unacceptable” by critics, who argue it shows a worrying lack of integrity combined with his current role.
Still aged just 60, the pension will rise further to more than £8,500 (£102,000-per-year) in five years time.
German MEP Sven Giegold said the situation was "a wakeup call for tougher integrity rules”, while Danish MEP Jeppe Kofod said: "It may not be illegal, but is it certainly morally unacceptable.”
Almost 150,000 people have now signed a petition, organised by EU employees, calling for “strong exemplary measures” to be taken against Mr Barroso for joining Goldman Sachs.
That decision, along with taking his EU pension early, was strongly condemned by those in Brussels, who feel he has sold out by using his EU contacts and knowledge to aid the huge international bank.
The petition states: “Not in our name! This decision to go and work for one of the banks most implicated in the subprime crisis that led to the financial crisis of 2007-2008 – the worst since the Great Depression – as well as one of the banks most involved in the Greek debt crisis, having helped Greece dissimulate its deficit before speculating in 2009-2010 against it in full knowledge of the unsustainability of its debt, is a further example of the irresponsible revolving-door practices, which are highly damaging to the EU institutions and, even if not illegal, morally reprehensible.”
Emily O’Reilly, the European Ombudsman, has filed a complaint about the case with the current Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.
She said: “The good thing about the Barroso case is that it is so high-profile and that it has triggered so much criticism that the commission will now be forced to act.”