MEPs are determined to push back against the Commission’s decision to award a contract to US asset manager BlackRock to carry out a study on the integration of environmental and social factors in the supervision of banks. The MEPs who mobilised at the end of April (see EUROPE 12468/23) have now received a reply from the Commission and are now considering what to do next.
After several reminder letters, French MEP Pascal Durand (Renew Europe) also received a written reply to his priority question, which received 84 signatures from several political groups, well beyond the deadline.
The Commission’s reply - the same as that given to other MEPs - also failed to convince him. It demonstrates, according to Mr Durand, that “the political and common sense question of the potential conflict of interest between an adviser, auditor and a major investor, from outside Europe moreover, does not seem to be a relevant criterion for the Commission”.
Here again, the price of BlackRock’s offer (€280,000), well below other offers, raises questions. It is obvious, according to the MEP, that BlackRock would have even agreed to do the study for free in order to make sure that it could influence the public decision.
For their part, French MEPs Manon Aubry (GUE/NGL) and Aurore Lalucq (S&D) sent a new written question to the Commission (see EUROPE 12508/3) on Thursday 18 June, asking why the Commission has given priority to price over independence and why it does not include in its selection criteria the likelihood of a conflict of interest as a red line.
A new written question is not envisaged for the moment, Pascal Durand’s office told us on Thursday, but an analysis would be underway to find out on what legal basis the European Ombudsman could be involved again, possibly from a different angle than the one chosen by French MEP Damien Carême (Greens/EFA) in his complaint of 10 June (see EUROPE 12504/20).
The approach of Pascal Durand and the 84 other MEPs is open and is intended to bring together as many people as possible, we have been told, precisely in order to be able to put more pressure on the Commission.
While they have chosen to take their initiative on their own, Manon Aubry and Aurore Lalucq support the initiatives of Pascal Durand and Damien Carême, we have been assured, and would be ready to join them if they needed to go further.
See the Commission’s reply (in French) to the written question initiated by Pascal Durand: https://bit.ly/3deSURO
See the new written question (in French) by Aurore Lalucq and Manon Aubry: https://bit.ly/37Fp0VR (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)