Danish Renew MEP steps down from bank board after criticism

3 months ago 20

EU lawmaker Stine Bosse from the Danish Moderate Party (Renew Europe) announced on Wednesday (31 July) she is resigning from the board of the Norwegian bank DNB to avoid a possible conflict of interest with her role in the European Parliament.

“My loyalty to the Danish voters who elected me must not be called into question, which is why I have informed DNB that I wish to resign from the DNB board as of today,” Bosse wrote on LinkedIn on Wednesday.

Bosse’s decision follows harsh criticism from another Danish MEP, Anders Vistisen from the Danish People’s Party (PfE), who pointed out Bosse’s potential conflict of interest.

The Liberal MEP sat on the board of DNB, which actively and officially lobbies the EU on environmental issues, while also being on the European Parliament’s Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee.

“I think she should resign (from DNB’s board) if she sits on committees that have direct contact with the commercial interests she represents in her board work,” Vistisen told Danish publication Ekstra Bladet on Tuesday (30 July).

In an interview with TV2, Bosse said she had initially thought of sitting on DNB’s board until next April, deeming that the six months in question “were not fraught with risk” of conflict of interest.

She insisted that she was in dialogue with the bank because she “didn’t want to live with this kind of criticism”, adding that from the outside, one could indeed wonder how she could reconcile the two roles, hence her resignation.

“No one should be able to question whether my focus is where it should be. And that is the political work,” Bosse said.

According to Ekstra Bladet, – Bosse was paid for her board position in DNB with a monthly salary of around DKK 35,000 (€ 4,690).

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]