Debate: One year after Morocco and QatarGate – stocktaking of measures to strengthen transparency and accountability in the European institutions
Date: WEDNESDAY, 13 DECEMBER 2023
Speaker: Věra Jourová
Language: EN

First: the creation of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office at EU level. The important role of this European Public Prosecutor’s Office and the European Anti-Fraud Office, which can investigate serious breaches of professional duties of both staff and members of the institutions in full independence. I also want to mention the independent European Ombudsman, who is regularly looking into ethical issues and provides advice and recommendation to the institutions. We have strong ethical rules in the Treaties, in independent EU and national law, and internal rules of the EU institutions or advisory committees. It is first and foremost their responsibility to implement these rules and ensure compliance with the rules by their members and staff. It is up to each institution, but also each individual member, political party and political group to live up to their responsibilities, to prevent unethical behaviour, to deal with such behaviour and to work with external authorities in case of illegal or even criminal activities. The Commission has considerably strengthened its internal rules and their application by a new Code of Conduct for Commissioners from 2018. The President of the Commission is responsible for the day-to-day implementation of the Commission’s Code of Conduct. She is assisted in this task by the Commission’s Independent Ethical Committee, whose opinion she may seek on any ethical question related to the Code of Conduct for Members of the European Commission. To conclude on this point, I have to say that the Commission has a robust ethics system and can deal with ethical issues properly. In addition, the Commission pays constant high attention to the implementation of the Regulation on EU officials and other agents, and follows up on any indication of a breach of rules by its staff, be it via its own investigative and disciplinary office or via OLAF. The Commission has recently strengthened its internal rules for third parties’ contributions to mission costs that may be accepted during missions, and sensitised its staff and Commissioners. The Commission invites all institutions covered by the Staff Regulations to use existing cooperation mechanisms, to examine room for sharing good practices, lessons learned and, where necessary, areas for further alignment of the rules for staff. As regards members, the Commission has adopted its proposal for the creation of an interinstitutional ethics body that will aim to set common standards for the members of all EU institutions. This would, for the first time, create a forum to discuss the expected ethical behaviour of members of the institutions, setting common standards and creating a common ethical culture, which we need. The work on our proposal to establish an EU ethics body common to all institutions is progressing, and I am proud that all seven EU institutions and the two advisory committees are discussing the Commission proposal. I think we can find an agreement on the Commission proposal soon. My plea is for pragmatism, institutionally and legally sound work, and making best use of the tools we have, because we have all the tools – we just need to use them better and create a common, solid culture of ethics.