ETV show “Pealtnägija” investigated the background of this case, which recently reached the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, and has found that the situation appears worse than was initially made public.

Top official Hololei’s luxurious trips included some with family members, to a five-star hotel in Doha, even with a private chauffeur laid on.

On top of this came the trips to Lebanon, Egypt – even Australia – all paid for by third parties, “Pealtnägija” reported.

These are but a few of the details which have emerged from a new investigative report, which dissects the top official’s activities and which have not yet been presented to the public.

Jean Quatremer, a journalist from the left-leaning French daily Liberation, told the show: “Neither the European Commission nor the European Parliament wants to discuss these matters publicly.”

“From this perspective, Brussels very much resembles the Kremlin – everything is closed off, and information is withheld. When I read the report, I was completely stunned,” Quatremer went on.

In compiling its report, “Pealtnägija” has been maintaining contact with Henrik Hololei for over a year, since the scandal first broke.

While the top official initially indicated a willingness to discuss the matter, there were always excuses as to why he could not appear on camera.

For this reason, the following account does not include his perspective on the events in question.

Hololei, 54, is the son of top sports journalist Gunnar Hololei.
He got his higher education in both his home country and in Denmark, and is one of Estonia’s most senior and high-profile officials.

He has been decorated for his efforts not only in Estonia, but also in Finland and Ukraine and was in 2014 named European of the Year by the Estonian European Movement.

Down the years, Hololei has been a member of several political parties in Estonia, ranging from Isamaa and the now-defunct Moderates (Mõõdukad, a forerunner to the Social Democrats), to Res Publica, part of the DNA of the present-day Isamaa, and now, Parempoolsed, founded in 2022.

Hololei is still a Parempoolsed member at the time of writing.

While he had a brief stint as Minister of Economic Affairs in late 2001-early 2002, he is better known to the wider public as Estonia’s top EU official.

Since the late 1990s, he has been heavily involved in European affairs, and is arguably one of the country’s most successful diplomats.

From 2004 he served as office chief for Siim Kallas, when the latter was Estonia’s European commissioner, going on to be Deputy Secretary-General of the European Commission, and, from 2015, as the rather wordily titled Director-General of the Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport.

In Estonia’s neighborhood, the key projects Hololei has had influence over in recent years include Rail Baltica and the imposition of sanctions relating to aviation, on Russia, following the start of the full-scale invasion.

But in March 2023, scandal caught up with the Estonian who had been working in Brussels for nearly 20 years.

In the context of its reporting on the “Qatargate” scandal and alleged bribery of MEPs by the Gulf state, EU insider publication POLITICO found instances of Hololei also having acted questionably.

Mari Eccles, a journalist with POLITICO, explained what had been going on.
“At the time, I was an aviation reporter, so one of my colleagues, Samuel Stolton, actually got a tip from a contact, who said you should look into Henrik Hololei and Qatar. But it was pretty vague, let’s say. So what we decided to do was to send a freedom of information request to the European Commission, and we got back a huge list of trips paid for by different people, but the only thing that was of real interest was this one trip paid for by Qatar, for Henrik Hololei.”

Quatremer’s take on this was: “The trip paid for by Qatar Airways, which Hololei had declared in the European Commission register, seemed completely legitimate at first glance since he had officially disclosed it. I couldn’t quite understand what the issue was.”

While the trip may have been paid for by Qatar Airways, the airline itself was looking for new markets in Europe.

Eccles continued: “And at the time of that trip, he was in the middle of – or his team was in the middle of – negotiating quite a lucrative deal for Qatar, between Qatar and the EU on this aviation agreement, and it was actually one of the only kind of agreements that Qatar and the EU were negotiating at the time, but it was definitely unpopular with certain European airlines who felt that it was opening access to Qatar Airways.”

Initially, it seemed as if the scandal was being taken seriously, with both the European Commission and its anti-fraud office, OLAF, launching their own investigations.

Eccles said, however, that no wrongdoing was found at that time.
She said: “A few days later, the Commission had told us there was no conflict of interest issue here, because every time a trip like this is kind of passed through the system, someone at the Commission will do a conflict of interest assessment and say whether or not it, you know, is dodgy or not, basically.”

In this case, it could be argued that something “dodgy” was indeed afoot.

“And what transpired was that Henrik Hololei was actually the guy who signed off on his own trips, saying ‘yeah there’s no conflict of interest here.’ So that was a kind of additional element to the story that then, you know, really surprised everybody,” Eccles added.

Hololei only then stepped down as director-general of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport, also giving his only interview on the matter to “Aktuaalne Kaamera.”

Hololei said at the time: “I still cannot comment on all the details in the current case, but I acted in accordance with the rules in force at the time, which have since been amended.”

What followed was more than a year’s radio silence. It subsequently became common knowledge that OLAF had already sent its investigation report to the European Commission in July this year, but this authority also did not inform the public of this.

While investigative bodies remain reluctant to comment officially on the matter, “Pealtnägija” has learned that the report which OLAF did compile raises many troubling questions.

Jean Quatremer of Liberation said: “When I read the report, I was completely stunned. OLAF found evidence of corruption involving the Director-General of the European Commission, which is one of the highest positions in the Commission. OLAF only had access to Hololei’s work email and office. They had no authority to go to his home, seize his personal phone or computer. So what OLAF uncovered is just the tip of the iceberg.”

The report reveals that the state of Qatar offered Hololei, and also family members, dozens of business-class flights, paid-for vacations, and gifts even stretching into the tens of thousands of euros in value, in exchange for confidential information which gave Qatar Airways a competitive advantage.

“From 2011 to the present, he accepted and even demanded that Qatar or, for example, the association of Arab airlines fund trips for him, his wife, and his daughter, who sometimes accompanied him,” Quatremer said of the report.

For instance, in 2019, while Hololei was speaking in public about the proposed Tallinn-Helsinki tunnel, and about the then-planned, now under construction, Rail Baltica project, he secretly traveled with his wife and daughter to Doha, Qatar’s capital, and a trip again funded by Qatar itself.

Accommodation was at the plush Four Seasons hotel – where the cheapest rooms come at €1,000 per night.

“Returning to the findings, there is evidence of fully funded trips to Australia, Canada, the U.S., and more than 10 other countries,” Quatremer said, sharing more of the revelations.

It must be noted at this point that the regulations at that time did not explicitly prohibit European officials from traveling at the expense of their hosts.
However, OLAF’s report highlights a clear risk of corruption which could have arisen from Hololei’s actions, given that Qatar, too, benefited.

Getting to the heart of the matter, Quatremer said: “Qatar Airways has the right to move freely across all EU countries without requesting additional permits, which is a huge advantage for Qatar, as it gives them access to all European airports. This is a market with 450 million people.”

“Negotiations for this agreement began in 2015, the agreement was signed in 2019, and we found a document dated May 2 where Hololei provided confidential information to Qatar Airways. In other words, it is clear that Qatar Airways knew the EU’s negotiating position during the talks. It’s like a poker game, but where you know your opponent’s cards,” the French journalist went on.

Under circumstances which are less than clear, the investigative report disappeared into the European Commission’s drawer for some time thereafter.
The public first got an inkling of it only last month, thanks to Jean Quatremer’s work. He has been writing on European issues for 35 years, and was able to access the document, which he then reported on in Liberation.
The response seemed to be in bureaucratic-speak.

At a press conference on October 31 this year, European Commission spokesperson Balazs Ujvari said: “The report was completed in July 2024. The Commission was advised to initiate disciplinary proceedings. The Commission authorized its disciplinary unit to start proceedings on this matter.”

Quatremer meanwhile asserted: “The OLAF report has been on Ursula von der Leyen’s desk since July, but nothing has happened with it so far.”

“I don’t know if you realize how serious this is,” he went on.
“In actual fact, the European Commission should have forwarded the case either to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office in Luxembourg or to the Belgian judiciary, to conduct further investigations and file corruption charges, because that is what this is all about.”

But this did not happen.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office also stated, in a terse statement given to “Pealtnägija,” that neither the European Commission nor OLAF had informed them of the findings, and that they had begun their investigation only after the article had been published, in late October.

Quatremer said: “The European Public Prosecutor’s Office will now be looking into the matter.”

“They are furious with the European Commission as they believe the Commission did not play fair, and that OLAF’s director, Ville Itälä, has committed violations. The fact that he did not forward the case to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office is blatantly criminal. For this reason, they are extremely angry.”

By far the highest-profile Estonian involved at the EU’s highest levels, prime minister and soon-to-be EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas, responded to “Pealtnägija’s” inquiry on whether she had spoken to Hololei about this matter.

Kallas said that she does not communicate with him.

“I have attended events with him, but I have no professional or personal contact with him,” Kallas said, adding that the case is: “Extremely regrettable. Naturally, such matters should be addressed quickly and decisively. This is exactly about the message we, as the European Commission, are sending outward.”

When the scandal first broke, Hololei announced that he would step down as head of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport.

Despite this, he was then handed a comfortable new role in the EU institutions, as a top advisor.

Even as the investigation is ongoing, he continues to travel worldwide, bringing in a reported wage of €23,000 per month.

Quatremer provided one more recommendation in getting a clear picture of the issue, saying: “It is important to understand how the EU works: there is no accountability here, as one might say in bad French, meaning no one is held accountable. Everything is resolved internally, and above all, no external oversight is wanted – not by judges, not by journalists, nor by European citizens.”

On the one hand, the European Commission changed its regulations following the Hololei case, ensuring that directors-general can no longer approve their own trips.

On the other, the European Prosecutor’s Office has hinted that if the Commission does not cooperate with them, their ability to resolve the case may be limited.

Parempoolsed on Wednesday responded to “Pealtnägija’s” inquiry on Hololei, stating: “Henrik Hololei is an ordinary member of the party. He is not a member of any of the party’s governing organs, does not represent the party in any role, and is not a public spokesperson for the party. The party is not, and can in no way be, aware of the details of the investigation. The party will form a stance on his membership once the due legal process has reached a conclusive outcome.”

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