After consulting stakeholders, the European Commission will present “in the coming weeks” a proposal for a joint interinstitutional agreement to establish a European ethics body for the EU institutions and bodies (Article 13 TEU), announced its Vice-President for Values, Věra Jourová, on Tuesday 14 February in the European Parliament.
For this future body to be truly interinstitutional, it should, in her view, be based on: - clear, high and common standards of ethics and integrity for the EU institutions and bodies; - common control mechanisms; - respect for the specific competences of each European institution.
Contacts are ongoing with stakeholders to ensure that we will come up with “something meaningful and feasible” that is capable of instilling “a common culture” on ethics, the Commissioner added.
During the plenary debate, Seán Kelly (EPP, Irish) spoke of “scandals that undermine the trust of citizens”, referring to the ‘Qatargate’ corruption scandal currently plaguing Parliament. He called for an “apolitical” European body, which respects the competences of the European institutions.
Like the ECR and ID Groups, the EPP Group opposed - unsuccessfully - the drafting of a resolution for adoption by Parliament. The resolution, which the political groups were asked to negotiate on Tuesday evening, will follow a previous specific resolution from September 2021, which set out Parliament’s vision for the shape of a European ethics body (see EUROPE 12792/9). In reaction to this first resolution, the Commission had lowered the ambition of Parliament (see EUROPE 12925/19).
Gabriele Bischoff (S&D, German) and Stéphane Séjourné (Renew Europe, French) welcomed Mrs Jourová’s announcement. “The ‘Qatargate’ has proved us right: self-monitoring is not enough and it discredits us collectively”, stressed Mr Séjourné. He pleaded for a solution “by the summer” to take the wind out of the sails of populists tempted to use the scandal for electoral purposes, in time for the European elections in spring 2024.
Rapporteur on the September 2021 Parliament resolution, Daniel Freund (Greens/EFA, German) criticised the fact that the ‘von der Leyen’ Commission had still not acted on its 2019 promise. A European ethics body will not eliminate corruption, but if it had been in place, “we would have been proactive” and former EU Commissioner Dimítris Avramopoulos might not have received €60,000 from Fight Impunity, which is accused of being the bribery platform used in ‘Qatargate’. Manon Aubry (The Left, French) criticised the current rules based on self-monitoring by MEPs themselves and accused the Commission of leading the Parliament astray for 4 years.
On behalf of the ID Group, Frenchman Jean-Paul Garraud opposed the creation of a European body, accusing Parliament of “distraction”. Such a body would be complex to implement, “the negation of existing structures” is a pretext to prevent the immediate creation of a “committee of inquiry” to shed light on ‘Qatargate’, he said. Geert Bourgeois (ECR, Belgian), for his part, insisted on the importance of the “separation of powers”, according to which it is always up to Parliament to control the executive.
On the EU Council side, Swedish Minister for European Affairs Jessika Roswall said that Member States were ready to consider any proposal from the EU Council, while insisting on respecting the specific competences of each EU institution. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)