Posible conflicto de intereses de la ministra Nadia Calviño al no renunciar a su empleo como máxima funcionaria de la UE

POLITCO.- Spain’s new Socialist government faces its first ethical dilemma: Should Nadia Calviño, the economy and enterprise minister, be forced to resign from her job as a top European Union official in Brussels?

Calviño, who until June 6 was director general of the European Commission’s budget department, has not formally quit the EU institution, a Commission spokesperson told POLITICO.

Instead she has taken leave from her job in Brussels on “personal grounds.”

Calviño’s appointment received widespread praise — because she knows the EU inside-out and was the civil servant in charge of steering the next long-term EU budget — but those qualities could now result in a potential conflict of interest.

While negotiations on the next EU budget will likely be handled by María Jesús Montero, Spain’s treasury minister, one of Calviño’s chief tasks will be to lobby her former colleagues and political masters to get a good deal for Spain. The Commission’s proposed €25 billion fund to support national economic reforms and its nearly €100 billion proposed research budget would both have ties to her new department, according to a 2016 royal decree outlining Spanish government responsibilities.

According to EU staff regulations, “permission shall not be granted to an official for the purpose of his engaging in an occupational activity, whether gainful or not, which involves lobbying or advocacy vis-à-vis his institution and which could lead to the existence or possibility of a conflict with the legitimate interests of the institution.”

Calviño’s path is an uncommon one, but not without precedent.

In 2009, Ladislav Miko made the jump from the Commission’s environment department to be environment minister in the Czech government. Michel Barnier, now the EU’s Brexit negotiator (a civil service post), left his role as a European Commissioner in 2004 to become foreign minister of France. He later returned to the Commission. Josep Borrell, Calviño’s new colleague in the Spanish cabinet, was in 2012 forced out of an EU role — as president of the European University Institute — amid conflict of interest allegations.

European commissioners are required to wait out a two-year “cooling-off” period before taking on roles that may have a conflict of interest with their Commission posts.

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