The organisation Transparency International (TI) updated, on Thursday 4 February, three reports on the efforts of the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament and the European Commission in the field of legislative transparency and the integrity of actors in public life at EU level.
Council of the EU. Since 2014, improvements have been noted and will continue, notably thanks to the interinstitutional Agreement on a revised European Transparency Register reached in mid-December 2020, which will apply for the first time to the EU Council (see EUROPE 12623/23, EUROPE 12618/8).
But according to TI, the EU Council, which brings together the Member States at European level, is still “an institution whose inability to increase transparency (of its own work, editor's note) is only possible thanks to its lack of accountability”.
The organisation criticises above all the fact that the legislative preparatory work in the EU Council almost never refers to the positions expressed by the Member States, in violation of European case law according to which citizens must be aware of their country's position throughout the legislative process. Furthermore, classifying documents as ‘limited’ in a systematic way violates EU law, it points out.
Leo Hoffmann-Axthelm, one of the authors of the reports, also noted that any improvement in legislative transparency was “held hostage” by the decision-making process in the EU Council, dominated by “consensus”. According to him, such an approach “prevents from changing rules of procedure requiring only a simple majority” of Member States.
To change this, a few countries would need to join the coalition of ten countries (Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Sweden and the Netherlands) in favour of greater transparency.
See the report on the EU Council: https://bit.ly/3rnaE5a
European Parliament. The authors of the reports note advances in the transparency and integrity of political life in the European Parliament.
But they criticise its lack of cooperation during the investigation in the name of freedom of mandate, such as the fact that central administrative bodies (e.g. the Bureau) are not accountable to the European Parliament plenary. This translates, according to Transparency International, into opacity in the way allowances and benefits are distributed, particularly in relation to the MEP's constituency office.
The income that an MEP may receive from private activity may be higher than that received from political activity. Hence the importance, according to TI, of analysing potential conflicts of interest before assigning a legislative dossier to an elected official. Problem: MEPs' declarations of financial interests are not systematically checked and MEPs rarely declare their meetings with lobbies (see EUROPE 12517/26).
“There is a real problem with side-jobs”, said Leo Hoffmann-Axthelm.
The organisation also recommends that a minimum cooling-off period be put in place before an MEP can have his or her address book in the private sector enhanced, at least as long as he or she is receiving a reclassification allowance.
On legislative transparency, the European Parliament is rather good at publishing documents thanks to its legislative observatory OEIL. Nevertheless, the authors recommend the publication of documents on inter-institutional negotiations (trilogues) of legislative dossiers, in particular the so-called ‘four-column’ documents summarising the positions of the EU institutions.
See the report on the European Parliament: https://bit.ly/3oW7tjj
European Commission. According to Transparency International, the European Commission is the most advanced in terms of transparency compared to other European institutions and Member States.
Nevertheless, several gaps are identified. Very frequent delays are observed in the provision of documents to the public. It is also very difficult to follow comitology processes when the decisions taken in these bodies (e.g. renewal of glyphosate approval) are increasingly political (see EUROPE 12625/15).
In particular, TI advocates the rapid introduction of a database to monitor legislative procedures, in accordance with an Interinstitutional Agreement of 2016.
The European Transparency Register has been an improvement, but 6 years later there are still too many shortcomings at the level of European Commissioners and the vast majority of EU officials in decision-making positions are not subject to it. Furthermore, the Ethics Committee responsible for assessing the risks associated with revolving doors of former Commissioners is not in a position to carry out its own investigations, as it can only be referred to it by the President of the Commission.
TI recommends, for example, extending to all Commission staff the obligation to meet only with lobbyists registered in the European register.
See the report on the Commission: https://bit.ly/2MycwsW
European Ethics Committee. Transparency International welcomes the establishment of a European Ethics Committee, promised by the von der Leyen Commission and on which MEPs have started working (see EUROPE 12646/22).
According to Mr Hoffmann-Axthelm, this body will have to be sufficiently independent in terms of staff and budgetary means and have the possibility of sanctioning infringements or, at least, suggesting the imposition of sanctions. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)