The European Commission expresses its disagreement with the main elements of a future European ethics committee that the European Parliament set out in its September 2021 resolution (see EUROPE 12792/9), in a letter that its President, Ursula von der Leyen, sent to French President Emmanuel Macron in mid-March.
In this letter, a copy of which was sent to EUROPE, Mrs von der Leyen insists that this European ethics committee, the creation of which is included in the Commission’s political programme, touches on “sensitive aspects” of the inter-institutional balance and that the current competences of the European Union institutions must be respected. Thus, the prerogatives of the European Ethics Committee should enable it to provide real “added value” through the non-binding opinions it issues.
Firstly, the Commission welcomes the negotiation of an interinstitutional agreement which will form the basis of the Ethics Committee. However, in its view, the legal basis (Article 295 of the European Treaty), suggested by the European Parliament, would not allow the bringing together of other institutions and bodies than the inter-institutional trio of the European Parliament/Commission/Council.
For Mrs von der Leyen, the European ethics committee should be composed of 5 members and not 9 as suggested by the European Parliament. The Commission President also expressed “serious doubts” about the scope of the committee’s powers as advocated by the Parliament, namely all staff covered by the Staff Regulations. It claims an unnecessary workload and a risk of duplication with OLAF’s activities.
On competences, the Commission reduces the Parliament’s ambition considerably. It is of the opinion that the European Ethics Committee will not be able to launch investigations, either on the basis of external alerts or on its own initiative, because it will not have an appropriate legal basis, unlike the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, for example.
Similarly, the Commission considers that the Ethics Committee should not be empowered: - to make recommendations setting out sanctions for breaches of ethical rules; - to make recommendations on the development and periodic updating of a common ethical framework; - to monitor the European Transparency Register, which lists interest groups accredited to the EU; - to make medium-term decisions.
As for the publication of all opinions, the Commission sees conflicts with the exclusive advisory role of the future committee as well as with the protection of the privacy of persons potentially affected by proceedings.
However, Mrs von der Leyen says she is open to transferring to the European Committee the competences of the Commission’s internal ethics committee, in particular to monitor the declarations of financial interests of European Commissioners once they are in office (the European Parliament is responsible for candidate Commissioners) and to check that their post-Commission professional career respects the ethical rules.
The EU institutions and bodies are invited to respond to the Commission’s comments by the end of April.
See Ursula von der Leyen’s letter: https://aeur.eu/f/13p (in French) (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)