Parliament ducks hard questions over digital nominee

MEP Mariya Gabriel paid discounted rent on an apartment in her native Bulgaria.

Mariya Gabriel is on track to become Europe’s next digital commissioner, and nothing, not even questions swirling about an allegedly cut-rate rental agreement in her home country of Bulgaria, is likely to stop her.

At a 2 1/2-hour hearing Tuesday afternoon, European parliamentarians didn’t raise the rental arrangement. The light touch smoothed the 38-year-old Bulgarian’s path to one of the top policy jobs in Brussels but it opens the Parliament and the Commission up to accusations of turning a blind eye to ethical shortcomings.

Back home, the apartment deal has prompted questions about the two-term MEP and her party. Investigative website Bivol and magazine A-specto dug up information about it after Gabriel was picked in May to fill Bulgaria’s open slot in the Commission and President Jean-Claude Juncker assigned her the digital portfolio.

Gabriel rented a 128-square-meter apartment in a building in Lozenets, an upscale neighborhood in Sofia, for just over €200 a month between October 2010 and May 2013, the rental company Zavodproekt confirmed to POLITICO. According to Bivol, that’s only a quarter of the average rental price of similar-sized apartments in the upscale area. Zavodproekt insisted Gabriel’s unit was unfinished at the time.

Gabriel’s GERB party runs the municipal government in Sofia, which owns the apartment. The allegation is that the party helped her get a significant discount as a favor to a party colleague.

The apartment rental was not listed on Gabriel’s declaration of interests in 2012 or 2014 — a document all MEPs must complete. Officials are required to note any perks or additional support they receive on top of that provided by the European Parliament. “Any Member found to be in breach of the Code of Conduct can be given a penalty by the President [of the Parliament],” Parliament’s website reads.

Her draft declaration of financial interests for the commissioner job mentioned an honorary membership in a beekeepers association, some shared inherited property and her cars, a Mercedes and a BMW, among other things, but not the rental agreement. When the declaration was scrutinized in the Legal Affairs Committee on June 12, sources indicated that it was discussed for only about two minutes, then ushered through with no objections.

It should have been declared, said Daniel Freund of Transparency International. “There are clear rules in the European Parliament on how to declare gifts. If an MEP gets an apartment for under market value, this has to be considered an in-kind advantage and if it is not declared then it constitutes a violation of the European Parliament Code of Conduct and should be sanctioned,” Freund said.

One Commission official said there was little knowledge of the arrangement. Commission officials said they are eager to bring Gabriel on board and don’t want to talk about the rental deal.

“We are really very happy to work with her,” said Roberto Viola, who heads up the primary Commission department drafting digital policy, DG CONNECT. “I’m quite impressed with what she already knows … she has a young vision.”

Before the interview, Viola’s assistant said he would not comment on national politics.

Questions remain

In Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital, Gabriel’s apartment remains a subject of media conversation.

A resident of her building, located at 25 Nikola Vaptsarov Street, told POLITICO she rented her apartment for close to €800 four years ago, around the same time Gabriel was living there. Gabriel paid a fourth of that per month. The woman said her apartment was the same size as Gabriel’s. Prices would go up or down depending on whether the apartment is furnished.

The apartment building is located in a popular, upscale neighborhood, overlooking a lush, green park and is a few blocks away from the U.S. embassy. The rental company Zavodproekt in charge of the agreement told POLITICO that the apartment was in “unfinished condition,” and that the tenant was obliged to finish the apartment at her own expense. The firm said an expert evaluated the rental cost of that apartment in that condition at 400 lev a month, or just over €200.

According to Bivol, Zavodproekt is owned by the Sofia municipality, which has been governed by a mayor from Mariya Gabriel’s GERB party since 2009. The company doesn’t make a profit, the site reported.

Articles in the Bulgarian press allege that her party, GERB, helped her get a highly discounted rate on the flat. The party did not answer emailed questions about whether they were involved. 

Gabriel, who did not answer questions emailed by POLITICO after also declining requests for an interview, told Bulgarian magazine Thema, “I needed room to store some of my stuff.” She was already an MEP at the time and was likely splitting her time between Brussels and Strasbourg.

A GERB spokesperson told POLITICO that Gabriel would address questions after her hearing but didn’t specify which questions. After Tuesday’s hearing, Gabriel’s staff said she would not speak to the media until her nomination was confirmed.

Parliament shrugs shoulder

In the nomination hearings, MEPs are supposed to evaluate commissioners-designate “based on their general competence, European commitment and personal independence,” according to internal rules. The coordinators of the responsible Committee are later invited to state “whether, in their opinion, the commissioners-designate are qualified both to be members of the College and to carry out the particular duties they have been assigned.” If they unanimously reject the commissioner-designate, the chair of the committee involved “shall submit a letter of rejection on their behalf.”

In the written MEPs’ questions submitted to her ahead of her hearing Tuesday and in her preliminary answers, there was no mention of the rental agreement or any major ethics breaches. Under Parliament’s rules, MEPs are entitled to ask up to 25 questions during the hearing, “grouped together by theme whenever possible.”

POLITICO reached out to over a dozen MEPs across the political spectrum, many of whom sit on the committees responsible for questioning her. Many didn’t respond to multiple phone calls and emails. Others said they had never heard the accusations or downplayed its importance. Gabriel will appear before two major committees, the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, which has 134 members and and the 61-member Culture and Education Committee. Three other committees are also associated with the hearing.

Another official from the left-leaning Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats said it was “unlikely” his group would ask Gabriel questions related to her real estate history in Bulgaria. “Our priority will be whether or not she understands her portfolio,” the official said.

A spokesperson for the Green Party, which is generally demanding on transparency and accountability issues, was more firm. He said his group was not going to ask Gabriel any question related to her real estate history in Bulgaria. However, he said, “there will be questions on wider transparency issues.”

With the support of Parliament’s two biggest groups, it would be difficult for any criticism to derail her candidacy. MEPs are expected to easily approve her nomination in a plenary vote in July. That means she could start the job as soon as the summer, Digital Vice President Andrus Ansip confirmed to POLITICO.

Gabriel vowed to continue adhering to the rules.

“In my new role, I pledge to comply without fail, as soon as I am appointed, with the Treaty obligations on independence, transparency, impartiality and availability,” Gabriel wrote in her answers to parliamentary questions. “I will comply with the ethical standards set out in the [Treaty Articles] and in the Code of Conduct for Commissioners.”

This article was updated to reflect the action at the parliamentary hearing Tuesday.