EU fires top official over Qatar gift claims

A senior European Commission official suspected of accepting gifts from Qatar has been fired after a disciplinary procedure, an EU source told AFP on Thursday.

An EU official on condition of anonymity identified the person dismissed as Henrik Hololei of Estonia, the commission's former director-general for transport.

Its vice-president, Henna Virkkunen, earlier confirmed that a senior official was sanctioned for breaching Commission rules, without naming him, while media reports named him as Hololei.

Hololei had been under investigation since May 2025 after reports that he took several Qatar-funded trips between 2015 and 2021, sometimes with his family.

At the time, he was negotiating a deal with Qatar, which sought wider access to the EU market for Qatar Airways.

Previously several EU lawmakers and officials were accused of taking bribes to favour the emirate in the so-called "Qatargate" corruption scandal that erupted in 2022.