EN Official Journal of the European Union CE 65/212

(2004/C 65 E/228)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2762/03

by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(16 September 2003)

Subject: Disclosure of the entire staff complement of the cabinets of members of the Commission and changes therein in the past, present and future

1. Why does the IDEA directory, ‘Who's who in the European Union’, which is also accessible by Internet, only list the heads of cabinet and deputy heads of cabinet of members of the Commission and not the rest of the cabinet staff?

2. Why is no clear information provided concerning the exact composition of the cabinets in the recent past, particularly the last administrative period before the crisis of 1999? Only fragmentary and contradictory particulars are to be found.

3. With what other posts is membership of a Commissioner's cabinet compatible? Is it also compatible with simultaneous service — whether for a shorter or longer period — on the staff of a European Union institution?

4. Is information about the financial interests of members of the cabinets public?

5. Is the composition of the cabinets or part thereof kept secret? If so, why? Or does the Commission consider the information to be available to the public upon request, with only those who specifically inquire about the composition of the cabinets receiving it on a one-off basis, while it remains impossible to keep track of changes in the cabinets' staffing?

6. If the answer to question 5 is that the information is not publicly available or only to a limited extent, will the Commission remedy this situation? Would it be possible for the website to include a simple link to an archive of the present and former members of the cabinet of each Commissioner or former Commissioner — an archive which would be simple to create — or is there some other way in which the Commission could achieve the same level of public information?

Answer given by Mr Kinnock on behalf of the Commission

(4 November 2003)

The content of the IDEA guide is defined by the administrations of each Institution, body or agency of the Union. The Commission limits the information provided to managerial level only and, when applied to Cabinets, this consequently means that information in that publication is confined to Heads and Deputy Heads of Cabinets.

For details of the rules applying to Cabinets and an overview of the composition of Commissioners' cabinets, the Honourable Member is referred to two public web-sites as follows:

— Code of Conduct for Commissioners is set out on: http://europa.eu.int/comm/commissioners/prodi/president/code_en.htm

— The composition of Commissioners' cabinets is available on: http://europa.eu.int/comm/commissioners/index_en.htm and, plainly, is not ‘kept secret’.

In the experience of the Commission, the interest of the great majority of members of the public focuses on current members of a cabinet. The cost of developing and maintaining a separate website giving details of all former members of Commissioners' cabinets would therefore be disproportionate to its usefulness. Such information can, in any event, be made available upon request and the Honourable Member could ‘keep track’ of changes by making, say, annual visits to the website or contact with Commissioner's offices if he wished to.

The declaration of interests is provided for in the Code of Conduct of Commissioners and applies to the Commissioners. The members of Cabinet are subject to the rules set out in the Staff Regulations. They are therefore bound to respect the obligations specified in the Regulations, in particular the provisions of Articles 11 to 17 relating to conflict of interests and duty to exercise honesty, tactfulness and discretion. The Staff Regulations do not require the presentation of a declaration of financial interests by officials and those rules have that, and much else, in common with the rules governing civil service in democracies everywhere.