Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Wednesday, Oct 08, 2025

EU tightens ethics rules for staff as Qatar controversy grows

EU tightens ethics rules for staff as Qatar controversy grows

Crackdown comes after POLITICO revealed top official took free flights during key talks with Qatar.

The European Commission is rewriting its rules on staff travel expenses after POLITICO revealed that a top official accepted free flights with Qatar Airways while his team negotiated a major aviation deal with the Gulf state.

POLITICO reported on Monday that the director general of the Commission’s transport department, Henrik Hololei, traveled for free nine times with Qatar Airways between 2015 and 2021. He took most of these flights while his team was putting together a sweeping air agreement with the government of Qatar, which owns the airline.

Two of these flights were even paid for directly by the Qatari state, triggering concerns among MEPs over a potential conflict of interest. Others were funded by lobby groups and conference organizers.

A spokesperson for the Commission said it will be tightening its own rules in light of the revelations. While the institution has been reviewing its staff travel guidance — specifically to reduce carbon emissions — “for a while,” POLITICO’s report on Hololei’s flights has “provided an incentive to review also other aspects of the guide where further clarifications could be necessary,” the spokesperson said.

“The European Commission is in the process of tightening the rules concerning hospitality offered by an external event organizer to cover the mission costs of its staff members,” the spokesperson said. “Accepting such hospitality will be restricted to major international commitments e.g. the UN, the G7 and the G20, and to hospitality offered by Member State authorities in the context of official visits within the EU.”

Henrik Hololei, the director general of the Commission’s transport department, flew for free on Qatar Airways nine times between 2015 and 2021, according to details obtained by POLITICO


If these rules had been in place at the time, the most controversial of Hololei’s free Qatar Airways flights would not have been permitted. Hololei declined to comment.

When POLITICO initially approached the Commission for comment on Hololei’s free flights, a spokesman insisted his travel was all within the rules, but gave no details of the process through which any potential conflict of interest had been managed.

In recent days, calls have been growing for an investigation.

Daniel Freund, a German MEP, had argued that the case should be handed over to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, or the bloc’s anti-fraud watchdog, OLAF.

“I don’t understand why anyone in the Commission is accepting free flights paid for by lobby organizations. I just don’t see how that is in line with the rules,” he said in a call with POLITICO.

A Commission spokesperson had previously said that all of Hololei’s flights were “authorized and conducted in accordance with the applicable rules,” and that potential conflicts of interest were “carefully considered and excluded,” a response Freund called “ludicrous.”

His colleague in the Green group, Irish MEP Ciarán Cuffe, who also sits on the European Parliament’s transport committee, said the revelations in POLITICO’s article — obtained through a freedom of information request to the Commission — raised “real concerns.”

“I will be seeking full details from the European Commission of free flights or other benefits given to staff working on aviation deals,” Cuffe wrote on social media, adding that it was “crucial that conflicts of interest do not arise.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Wave of Complaints Against Apple Over iPhone 17 Pro’s Scratch Sensitivity
Syria Holds First Elections Since Fall of Assad
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
UK, Canada, and Australia Officially Recognise Palestine in Historic Shift
New Eye Drops Show Promise in Replacing Reading Glasses for Presbyopia
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Kuwait opens bidding for construction of three cities to ease housing crunch.
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Did the Houthis disrupt the internet in the Middle East? Submarine cables cut in the Red Sea
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Iran Faces Escalating Water Crisis as Protests Spread
More Than Half a Million Evacuated as Typhoon Kajiki Heads for Vietnam
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
×