The European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) detected on Thursday 26 September potential conflicts of interest between the declaration of financial interests and the portfolios allocated to two Commissioners-designate, namely Romania's Rovana Plumb, candidate for the Transport portfolio, and Hungary's László Trócsányi, candidate for the Neighbourhood and Enlargement portfolio.
Of the 26 Commissioners-designate, 11 candidates had been invited to clarify their personal situation in relation to the declaration received. A handful of them, including Mr Hahn, were forced to sell some investments. But only Ms Plumb and Mr Trócsányi were summoned to provide further detailed explanations to MEPs in person on Thursday at an in camera meeting.
Ms Plumb is reportedly accused of inconsistencies between her statements in Romania and at the European level, including the issue of a loan she received to run in the European elections. The Romanian social democrat is also suspected of abuse of power against the backdrop of the illegal transfer of an island on the Danube to private companies and is reported to have registered her Audi in Bulgaria to escape the ecotax she had herself introduced, according to Marie Toussaint (Greens/EFA, France).
The JURI Committee declared a conflict of interest towards Ms Plumb by a large majority: 15 votes against, 6 votes in favour, 2 abstentions.
As for Mr Trócsányi, it is the links between his activity in the law firm Nagy & Trócsányi, which he founded, and his political functions that pose a problem. The Christian Democrat, who is not a member of the Hungarian Prime Minister's Fidesz party, Viktor Orbán, said he “took time off” from his work as a lawyer when he was ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg between 2000 and 2004 and since 2007 when he was elected constitutional judge. “Being on leave of absence means that I have not been remunerated by the law firm in any way, nor was any dividend or any other payment disbursed to me by the firm”, says his declaration, which EUROPE has obtained. He added, “During my tenure as Minister of Justice between 2014 and 2019 ‘Nagy & Trócsányi’ declined all new work from the Hungarian Government, although work continued on existing matters”.
The vote on the Trócsányi case turned out to be closer: 11 votes against, 9 in favour and 2 abstentions.
The candidate denounced via Twitter that “a political decision was made lacking any factual basis” taken against his person and promised to “take all necessary legal steps against it”. The Orbán government spokesman, Zoltán Kovács, castigated “ pro-immigration parties that would like to reopen borders to migrants”, as the new Italian government is doing.
Planned since the 2018 reform of the European Parliament's Rules of Procedure (Annex VII on the Commission's approval), the current situation is unprecedented. This is the first time that the European Parliament has blocked the way for Commissioners-designate even before their public hearings (Tuesday 1 October for Mr Trócsányi and Wednesday 2 October for Ms Plumb).
After a telephone conversation on Thursday afternoon, Parliament President David Sassoli was to write to the President-elect of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to inform her of the JURI Committee's position and ask her what action she intends to take.
Ms von der Leyen will have to decide on the way forward. She could change the portfolios of two Commissioners-designate. But “this is unlikely, because the difficulties are related to people, not portfolios”, according to a parliamentary source. Ms von der Leyen might instead ask the Romanian and Hungarian governments to submit further candidates to her. Such a sequence disrupts the timing of the hearings, but does not, at this stage, call into question the von der Leyen Commission's assumption of office.
Calls for an ethics body common to all EU institutions
On Thursday, the GUE/NGL and Greens/EFA groups identified shortcomings in the procedure for the examination of declarations of financial interests by the Committee on Legal Affairs.
For Manon Aubry (GUE/NGL, France), MEPs cannot carry out adequate monitoring work because “they have no investigative capacity to verify the content of the declarations”. In addition to the very short deadlines imposed, “the scope for analysing conflicts of interest is far too narrow: current or past court cases are not taken into account, the information requested is fragmented and bank accounts are, for example, not included in declarations”, she added.
Both groups call for the creation of an independent and permanent European authority, capable of investigating potential ethical violations in the exercise of political life and imposing sanctions where necessary. In her mission statement, the Commissioner-designate for Values and Transparency, Věra Jourová, is invited to work with Parliament and the EU Council to establish an independent ethics body.
For the other Commissioners-designate, preparations continue for the hearings, which will take place between 30 September and 8 October. Their answers to the written questions asked by MEPs were expected by Thursday evening at the latest (see EUROPE 12332/8).
See Annex VII of Parliament’s Rules of Procedure on the Commission's approval: http://bit.ly/2mSHVcv (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion with Camille-Cerise Gessant)