Jurist EU institutions agree on draft proposal for new independent ethics body

[Dadparvar]

Seven EU institutions are in agreement on the creation of a new ethics body following a press conference with representatives and negotiators.

The agreement marks significant progress in the establishment of the body, initially proposed by Parliament in 2021 and deemed “unsatisfactory” in 2023. The call for a regulatory ethics body aims to protect EU financial interests following corruption scandals, notably QatarGate.

Parliament made the call in 2021 for an EU Independent Ethics Body (IEB) comprised of nine members with the purpose of improving “transparency and integrity.” It outlined that the aim of the IEB is to “guarantee that public decisions are taken with a view to the common good and citizens’ trust in the EU institutions.” The investigatory and advisory powers would include:

[starting] investigations on possible conflicts of interest or ‘revolving door’ cases involving Commissioners, MEPs and staff of the participating institutions, based on information from third parties such as journalists, NGOs, whistle-blowers or the European Ombudsman- allowing anonymity if appropriate; [proposing] and [advising] on ethics rules before, during and in same cases after a term of office or employment; [helping] the EP Committee on Legal Affairs in their assessment of possible conflicts of interest of Commissioners- designate prior to hearings; [complementing] Parliament’s right of inquiry; [collaborating] with national authorities and other competent EU bodies and agencies […]; [and raising] awareness and [providing] guidance, as well as have a compliance and advisory role with the ability to issue recommendations.

The body is to be established through an interinstitutional agreement between Parliament and the Commission.

In a 2023 plenary session, MEPs found the draft proposal’s powers to be weak. The MEPs criticized the change from the previously proposed nine members to five independent experts and claimed that the proposal failed to cover several key aspects, such as staff of the institutions or a body for the protection of whistleblowers.

Following negotiations, the Conference of Presidents endorsed the agreement, which was strengthened in 2023. It now allows five experts to examine individual conflicts of interest. The agreement entails that all other EU institutions will join the IEB.

The lead negotiators for the session were European Parliament Vice President Katarina Barley and German Green Party representative Daniel Freund. Freund published the agreement announcement, commenting that the move was a “great success for the transparency and the integrity of the EU institutions.” Freund went on to say:

For far too long, breaches of the relatively good lobbying rules in Brussels have gone unpunished. The absence of the independent scrutiny has allowed a culture of impunity to flourish, the extreme excesses of which culminated in the ‘QatarGate’ corruption scandal. We are now, for the first time, creating a body to monitor the integrity of both EU Commissioners and MEPs.

In a statement, Transparency International EU (TI EU) expressed doubt as to whether the IEB would be as effective as it is promised to be, alleging that it may be an overambitious attempt to enact change as it “fails to address the crux of the integrity problems across the EU institutions.” The statement continued, saying:

[T]here is no effective independent monitoring, oversight and sanctioning of unethical behaviour. This means that the EU institutions themselves will still be expected to police their own actions. Even with this limited mandate, the EU institutions will need to properly resource the body. Without adequate resources, the ethics body will simply window dress critical lapses in the EU’s integrity framework.

The TI EU did note that the body is a positive step, saying that it “welcomes such as development in principle.”

The Constitutional Committee will now create a report, which will be voted on in a plenary session in April 2024. If this passes, eight EU representatives must be delegated, and five independent experts must be selected before the IEB comes into operation.

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