This week, the plenary session of the EU Parliament in Strasbourg held an intensive debate concerning the Bahamas Leaks and the avoidance of conflicts of interest by former EU Commissioners. The plenum discussion also covered the interinstitutional proposal by the EU Commission on the mandatory transparency register.

Because of the Bahamas Leaks, yet another former EU Commissioner of the Barroso Commission has come under fire. According to Corporate Europe, Neelie Kroes has already been criticised on a number of occasions because of conflicts of interest. Yet another conflict of interest has been added to a series of incidents: Barroso, Hedegaard, de Gucht, to name just a few prominent figures. Therefore, on Tuesday, Pierre Moscovici, Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs had a debate with the EU Parliament on the Bahamas Leaks and on the EU Commission's current code of conduct. He defended the current regulations for Commissioners, which in his opinion were equivalent to international standards. In particular President Juncker would make a great effort to avoid conflicts of interest and would frequently involve the ad hoc Ethics Committee.

The debate in the EU Parliament was heated. MEPs from a wide range of factions demanded a stricter code of conduct for EU Commissioners. The cases of Barroso and Kroes had reduced the already low level of citizens’ trust into EU institutions even further. In particular the definition of conflicts of interest, their control and appropriate sanction mechanisms are obviously not sufficiently regulated by the code of conduct for EU Commissioners. Werner Langen, Chair of the PANA Committee, announced that the PANA Committee would follow up the allegations against Neelie Kroes. Commissioner Moscovici asked the MEPs to differentiate between individual cases and systemic wrongdoing. No code of conduct could provide a 100% guarantee.

“Mandatory” Transparency Register

Whilst the Constitutional Affairs Committee, put the report by the EU Parliament for more transparency, integrity and responsibility on the back burner, the EU Commission last week presented its own proposal for an interinstitutional agreement concerning a mandatory transparency register in the EU institutions. The responses by NGOs showed average to big disappointment as a reaction to the grandly announced reform proposal. Daniel Freund of Transparency International EU und ALTER EU (Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation) referred to “timid and cosmetic changes” and regarded the proposal as “insufficient to regain public trust”.

On Thursday, Parliament held a debate with EU Commissioner Frans Timmermans concerning the proposal for the interinstitutional transparency register. As he had done the week before, Timmermans again emphasised what progress had been achieved by the new proposal, in particular by embedding the principle: no registration, no meeting in all three EU institutions. Based on this principle, the transparency register would become as mandatory as possible. The factions agreed that the trust of the citizens needed to be strengthened; however, opinions were divided with regard to the transparency register. The European People’s Party and the Liberals of ALDE were rather holding back with making more demands. In the opinion of the Left factions, such as GUE/NGL and the Greens, but also of the European Conservatives, the proposal did not go far enough. The AK too regards it as a missed chance not to have proposed and discussed an actually legally binding transparency register. The current proposal could be regarded as the lowest common denominator, which on top of it runs the risk to be even more watered down in further negotiations.

Further information:

Lobbying in Brussels - Breaking the excessive power of corporations

Proposal of the EU Commission