The European Parliament meeting in Strasbourg on Tuesday 14 March welcomed the European Ombudsman’s work “on how the administration records text and instant messages sent/received by staff in the course of their duties” in the European Commission.
By adopting the report by Anne-Sophie Pelletier (The Left, French), the European Parliament supports the Ombudsman’s commitment to improve the way the EU administration deals with text and instant messages in relation to its transparency obligations.
The European Parliament takes note of the Ombudsman’s enquiry into the Commission’s refusal to give the public access to text messages exchanged between Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the CEO of a pharmaceutical company on the purchase of Covid-19 vaccines. It considers that text messages whose content relates to policies, activities and decisions within the institutions’ sphere of responsibility are considered EU documents within the meaning of the Transparency Regulation. According to MEPs, the Commission “failed to ensure the highest level of transparency” in the case of the text messages exchanged (see EUROPE 12879/16).
Finally, the Commission is invited to put in place the strictest ethical rules to prevent conflicts of interest and to take further measures to combat the ‘revolving door’ (see EUROPE 12955/25). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)