German company register shows Verheugen’s active role in European Experience Company and a clear conflict of interests

New documents, obtained from the German official company register reveal that former EU commissioner Günter Verheugen has a clearly defined active role in the European Experience Company as well as a clear financial interest.

It is now five weeks since the German weekly Wirtschaftswoche broke the news that the former commissioner was involved in European Experience Company lobby consultancy. The Commission has asked an Ad-hoc Ethical Committee to assess the risk of conflicts of interest from this, but the process appears to still be on-going. Verheugen, meanwhile, wrote an
The German register of companies is clear (above): Petra Erler and Günter Verheugen are both 'Managing Directors' (Geschaeftsfuehrer). There is no distinction between 'executive' and 'non-executive' directors, contrary to what Günter Verheugen and the website of his company both claim since the scandal broke (right).


Verheugen will clearly be actively involved in the European Experience Company and will financially benefit from whatever profit the company makes, presumably taking 50 per cent. Verheugen is officially retired and is reported to enjoy a European Commission pension of around 10,000 euro per month.

In his open letter, Verheugen also stresses “that the European Experience Company explicitly excludes any lobbying activities”. As mentioned before, it is hard to judge what Verheugen means by this. How narrow or broad does is Verheugen’s definition of ‘lobbying’? A narrow definition would mean only direct, face-to-face lobbying of EU officials, but the Commission’s definition of lobbying is – rightly - far broader than that:

“activities carried out with the objective of influencing the policy formulation and decision-making processes of the European institutions” [including preparations for lobby activities].

The broad definition from the transparency register launched in 2008 was confirmed in October 2009. Since it was first registered in March 2010, the European Experience Company’s activities are officially described as “Consultancy and education for institutions and corporations about EU and other political matters” (our translation; see document above). Nowhere in the official documents is there anything that points to lobby activities being excluded.

The Commission’s decision on Verheugen’s involvement in the firm will show whether there is any real political will to prevent conflicts of interest. In the last 10 days, almost 4,000 people have written to the Commission to insist that Verheugen’s role should not be approved.


Download the documents filed by The European Experience Company at the German register of companies

Photo: (c) European Commission