Brussels, 18/11/2010 (Agence Europe) - At the end of December, the European Commission will adopt its new code of conduct for commissioners. The broad lines of the draft text, which was debated by the college of commissioners on Thursday 18 November, was unveiled by Commissioner Maros Šefèoviè (Administration) during his appearance last week before the European Parliament's budgetary control committee. “The revised text will meet the most important points requested by the EP”, he said. “Commissioners must be independent, must avoid any conflict of interest and have to perform their duties with integrity and discretion”, he added.
According to Šefèoviè, the revised code of conduct will above all stipulate that: - 1) Commissioners who are willing to actively participate in European elections shall take unpaid electoral leave and their portfolio will be taken on by one or several colleagues. - 2) The period in which commissioners must inform the president about their post-office activities should be reviewed and extended but Šefèoviè has not yet said by how long. At present, the code restricts this obligation to one year following departure from the Commission. The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation in the EU (ALTER-EU) is calling for this “surveillance period” to be extended to three years. Former commissioners should not lobby members of the Commission or their staff for his/her business, client or employer on matters for which they were responsible within their portfolio as a commissioner. - 3) Declarations of interest made by each commissioner shall be revised every year and the form of the declaration will be improved for the sake of transparency and greater clarity. - 4) Reallocation of files between members of the Commission in case of potential conflict of interest should follow clear, exact procedure. - 5) Commissioners' spouses or direct family members may not be members of the private office of the commissioner concerned. - 6) The mandate and the composition of the ethical committee which, today, is responsible for assessing the risk of conflict of interest when a former commissioner takes up a new profession during the course of the year following departure from the Commission will be extended. Findings on post-office activities will in future be published. (H.B./transl.jl)