Life after the Commission

A tale of two ex-director-generals. Eyebrows were raised when it was announced in January that Alexander Schaub, former Commission director-general of competition and then of internal market, who retired last year, was joining the Brussels office of the law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.
A quieter move has just been made by Horst Reichenbach, another German, who was successively director-general of health and consumer protection, of personnel and administration and enterprise and industry. He jumped ship earlier, in 2005 becoming secretary-general of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Last week, as he turned 62, he was elevated to the position of vice-president of the EBRD, with responsibility for credit risk management and human resources. Just as long as he does not introduce the same career development review that he and Neil Kinnock introduced at the Commission he should be all right.