MEPs are continuing to lobby against the European Commission’s decision to award a contract to US asset manager BlackRock to carry out a research study into including environmental and social factors in bank supervision. A new written question to the Commission, co-signed by 25 MEPs from the RE, S&D, Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL groups, was tabled on Friday 2 October at the initiative of Pascal Durand (Renew Europe, France).
The MEPs were disappointed with the Commission’s responses to their previous written questions (see EUROPE 12510/20), so they are approaching the issue from a new angle. This time they are asking for access to BlackRock's commitment to physical segregation between the people working on this research and the rest of the company’s services - a commitment which, according to the Commission, is part of the contract with BlackRock.
In addition, the MEPs want to ensure that BlackRock will also be operating financial segregation between the parent company and its subsidiary carrying out the research, as their financial interests overlap and the recommendations made by one of them will inevitably benefit the other.
The MEPs are also questioning the Commission about the risk of jeopardising the EU’s sovereignty by giving an American company significant scope to influence EU laws with this contract.
The MEPs have also decided to revisit the question of BlackRock’s tender and are asking the Commission to share the elements that led it to judge that the tender was not abnormally low.
The European Ombudsman is expected to issue her final conclusions in this case soon (see EUROPE 12560/23), following a complaint by Damien Carême (Greens/EFA, France).
The written questions can be found at: https://bit.ly/3liXRh3 (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)