Romanian Corina Cretu, the EU Regional Policy Commissioner, lost nearly half of her staff during her first year in office. Her light work schedule and her tendency to combine official trips with leisure travel and to ask staff to perform personal tasks, might have led to 8 of the 19 people in her private office leaving in 12 months, according to an article published by political newspaper POLITICO.

The Romanian commissioner lost her head of cabinet, deputy head, and her communications chief, among others, as current and former employees described an office in disarray. Several aides in Cretu’s personal office allegedly left because they feared that they would not be able to defend her. The staff grew concerned that the commissioner was taking too much time off and her former head of cabinet warned against blocking her schedule for “commissioner time” or “no meetings” because it might look suspicious.

A copy of the commissioner’s personal schedule for the past 12 months, which POLITICO obtained, often showed no meetings on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays, as Cretu had a tendency to take long weekends or to combine work trips with leisure. POLITICO also spoke to 11 former and current staffers in her Commission office. Many of them whom declined to comment on the record.

Among the 28 commissioners, Cretu has one of the highest absentee rates at the weekly meetings of the full Commission, or College, missing nearly a quarter of them.

Corina Cretu defended her work habits, in an interview she gave to POLITICO last week, saying she maintained a full professional and travel schedule. “I visited 24 countries, I oversee all of the operational programs. I have 700 people in the DG [Directorate-General] who I’m preparing for. I’m preparing for the cabinet,” she said.

Cretu acknowledged she kept meetings to a minimum but said she spent a lot of time reading to prepare for them. “I prefer less meetings and to be more prepared than to have more meetings and not know what I’m saying,” she told POLITICO.

She didn’t want to comment about staff allegations that she had asked them to do personal tasks.

Read the full article here.

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editor@romania-insider.com