The text of the Interinstitutional Agreement on the European Ethics Body, which MEPs will be asked to approve at the end of April at the last plenary session of the European Parliament of the 2019-2024 legislative period, is unlikely to change (see EUROPE 13371/2).
The agreement will provide for the participation of the Council of the European Union as a full member, but the common standards on ethics and integrity that the future European body will draw up will only concern the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Council. It will not apply to ministers from Member States within the context of their European activities, not even Ministers from the country holding the six-monthly Presidency of the EU Council.
Daniel Freund (Greens/EFA, German), a member of the European Parliament team that negotiated the Interinstitutional Agreement, reminded the Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) on Wednesday 3 April that seven EU institutions and bodies had remained opposed, throughout, to the Council having a right of veto over the drafting of ethical standards without these standards applying to itself.
Then “we were told that the European Commission’s position had changed” and that the other institutions and bodies were finally ready to accept it “reluctantly”, he said. Although he criticised this about-turn, he nevertheless recommended that Parliament approve the agreement, firstly on Monday 22 April in the AFCO Committee, and then at the plenary session starting the same day. “It’s a case of take it or leave it”, he admitted.
At the Council, a diplomatic source confirmed that the inter-institutional discussions had been halted. It seems that the Council’s proposal to participate fully has been accepted by all, the source noted, not expecting any obstacles in the validation of the agreement.
According to Mr Freund, the agreement preserves the autonomy of each participating institution and body, and has been significantly improved compared to the Commission’s initial proposal. In particular, the future body will be empowered to issue recommendations from independent experts on all types of “written declarations”, he stressed.
Interviewed by Agence Europe, he said that he was “confident” that the European Parliament would ratify the Interinstitutional Agreement by a simple majority, even though a majority of the EPP group was expected to oppose it. It would be “ridiculous” to preemptively pull the plug on the European Ethics Body because the Council won’t have to comply with the standards, he said.
On behalf of the EPP group, the Germans Sven Simon and Rainer Wieland were upfront about their misgivings concerning the agreement on the table, with the former describing the future body as a “disciplinary chamber with supposedly independent experts who would publicly pillory freely elected representatives based on moral standards, not rules”. It is “totally incomprehensible” that an MEP would agree to the Council drawing up rules that would not apply to itself, he added, also criticising the fact that the body’s secretariat will be located within the Commission. And, according to him, MEPs whose written declarations have been examined will end up in the court of public opinion, even if they have not broken any rules.
“Some people think that you have to be a police officer, a judge, a lawyer and an executioner all at the same time”, denounced Mr Wieland, convinced that the European Ethics Body could not have prevented the ‘Qatargate’ scandal of alleged corruption of MEPs by third countries.
The other speakers gave their qualified support to the agreement on the table, recognising the difficulty of the task facing Parliament’s negotiators. Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz (S&D, Polish) called the Council’s position “undignified”, but said he was prepared to accept the agreement. “We are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel”, said a delighted Gilles Boyer (Renew Europe, French), even if the agreement is still a long way from Parliament’s initial 2021 position (see EUROPE 12763/23).
While ready to vote in favour of the agreement, Domenec Ruiz Devesa (S&D, Spanish) pointed out several problematic elements, such as the location of the secretariat of the Ethics Body, which he felt should be within the European Ombudsman. The fact that the Council is joining the body without being subject to the future common ethical standards “crosses a red line”, especially as the Council is not cooperating on Parliament’s right of enquiry or on the reform of the European treaties, he felt. Helmut Scholz (The Left, German) added that the Council should be obliged to participate in one way or another.
Responding to critics, Mr Freund pointed out that Parliament could always oppose the adoption of a common standard within the European body and that a legal procedure would be needed to incorporate this standard into Parliament’s internal rules. “There will therefore be no decision without the agreement of Parliament”, he noted. He also mentioned the possibility of referring the matter to the Court of Justice of the EU on the grounds that the Council is not cooperating fairly, if it blocks the adoption of a standard that the other participants agree to.
On the recommendations of the experts following the examination of written statements by an MEP, it will be up to the President of the European Parliament to decide on a possible sanction, stressed Mr Freund. On the subject of transparency, he said that the Ethics Body would report annually on the basis of aggregated and anonymous data, following the example of Parliament’s advisory committee on the code of conduct for MEPs. As for the secretariat, each institution or body will have a member within the secretariat, which will be chaired by one of the members according to a rotation system starting with Parliament.
Finally, in response to Mr Simon’s criticism that the agreement does not mention any legal basis, a representative of Parliament’s Legal Service referred to European case law, according to which each institution and body will retain some room for manoeuvre in adopting common ethical standards.
Mercedes Bresso (S&D, Italian), pointing to the limited time available to decide on delicate issues such as the Council’s participation in the European body, finally wondered whether MEPs would not be better off adopting a simple recommendation to be forwarded to the European Parliament that will emerge from the ballot box in June.
To see Daniel Freund’s draft report, go to https://aeur.eu/f/bln (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)