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European prosecutors confirmed Friday they have opened an investigation into accusations that a senior EU official improperly accepted luxury gifts from Qatar while his department was negotiating a major deal with the Gulf state.
News outlet Politico revealed last year that the former head of the EU’s transport department, Henrik Hololei, travelled a number of times between 2015 and 2021 to Qatar at the expense of its government or organisations close to it.
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) confirmed the opening of a probe at its own initiative, after a report this week in French newspaper Liberation claimed the European Commission was failing to properly pursue the case.
Hololei’s free business class trips — exposed as the European Union grappled with a separate Qatar-linked graft scandal in parliament — were made as his department was involved in negotiating an air transport agreement with Doha.
The transport chief was subsequently moved to an advisory position in the EU department for international partnerships, which he still occupies today, and an inquiry launched by the European Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF.
In a statement, the EPPO recalled that EU institutions and bodies have a duty to report “any criminal conduct in respect of which it could exercise its competence”.
It said it had yet to receive any report from either the commission or OLAF concerning the contents of Liberation’s article.
According to the paper, OLAF investigators identified a long list of gifts from Qatar that benefited Hololei and his family — at least 25 trips in total, most of them undisclosed, involving five-star hotel stays and luxury shopping sprees.
Questioned on Hololei’s case, the European Commission said Thursday it had “acted quickly,” saying OLAF’s investigation was completed in July this year and a mandate given to the commission’s disciplinary office to take appropriate action.
The case is still at a pre-disciplinary stage, according to a commission spokesperson who said Hololei would be heard as part of the internal procedure and declined to “speculate” about its conclusions.
Hololei did not respond to an AFP request for comment.
The EPPO probe comes two years after the “Qatargate” bribery scandal, in which a number of EU lawmakers were accused of being paid to promote the interests of Qatar and Morocco.
Both states deny the accusations.
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