Maria Luís Albuquerque in the USA after controversy over espionage denied by Brussels

The European Commissioner for Financial Services, Maria Luís Albuquerque, is traveling to the United States from Monday to Saturday to participate in the spring meetings of the IMF, following a controversy over measures to prevent espionage that have since been denied by Brussels.
“From Monday to Saturday [next week], the Commissioner for Economy and Productivity, Execution and Simplification, Valdis Dombrovskis, the Commissioner responsible for International Partnerships, Jozef Síkela, and the Commissioner responsible for Financial Services and the Union of Savings and Investment, Maria Luís Albuquerque, will participate in the 2025 spring meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund in Washington,” the community executive announced today.
The announcement comes after reports that the European Commission provided disposable mobile phones and basic laptops to senior officials traveling to the United States, including the Portuguese European Commissioner Maria Luís Albuquerque, to mitigate the risk of espionage.
When questioned today by Lusa, an official source from the community executive emphasized: “We deny having given instructions to our staff recommending the use of portable phones on official missions in the United States.”
The same source stresses that “this fact is not mentioned in the travel recommendation sheets or in any other document.”
Nevertheless, the same source reports that the institution “recently updated the lists of specific travel recommendations by country for staff,” which “reflect the latest changes in how the Commission communicates and the overall increase in global cybersecurity threats.”
“We do recommend that the electronic visa be associated with an EU safe conduct for senior officials, in order to emphasize the official nature of the visit and facilitate visa granting processes at embassies before departure, but once again, these updated recommendations have been included in many informative lists for other countries for the attention of senior officials traveling,” it concluded.
In the information released today, it is indicated that, in Washington, Maria Luís Albuquerque “will have high-level meetings with government representatives, major institutional investors, non-profit organizations, and trade associations.”
Among the list of personalities with whom the former Portuguese minister will meet are the Governor of the People’s Bank of China, Pan Gongsheng, the Minister of Finance of India, Nirmala Sitharaman, the Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Jay Powell, and also the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, the latter to discuss financial regulation issues.
At 57 years old, the former Portuguese official is one of 11 women among 27 names (a quota of 40% for women and 60% for men) in Von der Leyen’s second community executive, which has as its main mission the community economic competitiveness.