European Commission Vice-President for Values Věra Jourová reiterated that the future European Ethics Body should limit itself to “setting standards” in ethics and integrity to be applied by the participating EU institutions and bodies (Article 13 TEU), on Wednesday 24 May before the European Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
Our proposal for an “Interinstitutional Agreement”, which could be unveiled in June, will give the future body the power to draw up standards, but not to conduct investigations or impose sanctions, Ms Jourová confirmed. In order to investigate and impose sanctions on individual cases, the future body should, according to our legal analysis, be anchored in EU law, she added. She argued that a majority of the representatives of the EU institutions and bodies consulted do not want the EU Ethics Body to deal with individual cases.
However, she said, in response to a question from Markéta Gregorová (Greens/EFA, Czech), that the Commission’s proposal would be a starting point and could be amended during the interinstitutional discussions due to end in the autumn, noting that the ambitions of the political groups in the European Parliament differed on the issue.
On behalf of the EPP group, Sven Simon from Germany supported the contours of the future committee as described by the European Commissioner.
‘Democracy’ package. Ms Jourová also spoke about the democracy package that the Commission will unveil on Wednesday 7 June. This legislative package will include a proposal to shed light on the financing of non-governmental organisations established in the European Union by third countries and third-country controlled public entities.
The main objective is to create “transparency” on these financial links, because we ourselves have no insight into the situation, she admitted.
Asked about the possible negative impact of the proposal on some European organisations acting in good faith, Ms Jourová said her services were working on safeguards. In particular, she mentioned the possibility for these organisations to be listed in the non-public part of the European register to be established. She also clarified that the rules to be adopted will be “maximum harmonisation”, so that EU Member States will not be able to introduce more restrictive national rules. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)