Debate: Establishment of an independent EU Ethics Body
Date: TUESDAY, 14 FEBRUARY 2023
Speaker: Věra Jourová
Language: EN

But to start, when Mr López Aguilar finished and many of you said it here today, we speak about a serious matter, something which is connected with the need to strengthen democracy and increase the trust of people, of the citizens. There are three main reasons why the trust of citizens is declining: abuse of power, corruption and lack of transparency and lack of honest communication. And we discussed here about how to increase the trust of the citizens, especially after the scandal which is now resonating in our Member States and in the minds of the citizens. I will come with concrete comments on the ethics body in a minute. Allow me just to say that we are working on the very concrete proposal which will also take lessons from indeed two years of consultations which we went through – because we were not passive, as some of you indicated, we were consulting, we were addressing the institutions under Article 13. I will come back to that. The response was that there is no appetite to join the ethics body in case we establish it. At some moments it looked like a plan to establish the ethics body, which would be just a bilateral agreement between the Parliament and the Commission. And Mr Freund was speaking to me many times about that and I was really frustrated that we are not able to, sorry to say it, sell this idea to other institutions. Now we will do again better because I think that what the institutions need to see is the concrete proposal, which the Commission will come with the parameters, and I will speak about it. This ethics body and its establishment falls under the broader scope of a list of actions, which the Commission is planning. One is the anti-corruption strategy and harmonisation of the sanctions for corruption. Another one is the defence of democracy, which should deal with the transparency of financing from the third countries. The transparency register – I will ask the Parliament to come back to the negotiating table and speak about how to upgrade the system which we achieved between 2020 and 2021. And indeed some of you spoke about the need to upgrade the rules for lobbying. I fully agree and this is what we will try to focus on. The Commission will upgrade the rules for the access to documents, to reflect on the new communication ways – because on access to documents, I didn’t manage to convince the Parliament to withdraw the directives. But coming back to the ethics body, I said clearly that we need the ethics body and the Commission will propose the first draft during March and we will invite the institutions which in our view should participate. It’s the European Parliament, it’s the European Council, it’s the Council, of course the Commission, the European Central Bank, then the European Court of Auditors, the European Court of Justice, the Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee. These are the institutions listed under Article 13. So we will consult in March for the first time on the basis of a very concrete proposal, which will contain the information or the idea of the Commission regarding the scope, competences, composition of the body, the administrative matters – probably also finance, because we should be aware of how much the model will cost. We all know that we need the money for many, many things now we are in deep crisis. I want to propose something which will be politically feasible, but also meaningful, which will solve the issues which we discussed here. We heard from several Members of the Parliament that this model has to be well thought through because this might be about investigation and probably also sanctioning. Well, we need to be aware of that, that to create the new body and give it the competences we have to have a sufficiently legally sound proposal. And we need to consult very intensively. So this will come in March – for you who asked about the time frame. But let me also react on what I heard here, because I think the expectations are very high and I believe that we should be aware of what the ethics body will not be, in my view. And again, I said clearly that we need it and I agree with all of you who said it. The impression from the debate was for me that we do not have sufficiently functioning structures and enforcement of the rules at the level of individual institutions and it’s not true. Ms Hautala said ‘let’s focus on our rules and let’s improve the rules and enforcement of the rules per institution’. And I very much appreciate what President Metsola came with – those 12 points which are an important step forward. We are doing our homework in the Commission. Simply the rules of each institution will be as important as ever because the ethics body is not replacing them, cannot replace them. This is the extra layer. So please, let’s not say we don’t have rules, we don’t have structures. Each institution is equipped and can and should do what’s necessary to be done. The second thing, sorry, those images of the Members of the Parliament or the Commission just travelling with the suitcase full of cash. We have measures in case the cash is the proceeds of criminal activity. We have OLAF, we have EPPO, and we have national prosecution. So an ethics body will not replace the investigatory powers which we already have for the cases of criminal activities. And last but not least, I have to say I was shocked when – who was it? I want to be concrete – I think Madame Chaibi – she is not here anymore – said, ‘there is no ethics without an ethics body’. Sorry, I am offended by that, because we all have our responsibility. We have high functions and we should have some moral compass without having the ethics body. Sorry, an ethics body will not replace our individual responsibilities. So I just want us to be aware what the body will not be. I will propose what we think it should be and I believe that by creating the body, which will harmonise the standards so that there are common sets of rules for everybody who works in the institutions, it will be a very important step forward. And I will not go into details how we want to propose the composition, but I would really like to propose something which will be practically usable, which will deliver the results. Some of you spoke about the investigatory powers. We have to think it over because just an illustration – in 2020 we had 4 500 disciplinary cases in the Commission. And they were investigated by our structure, our internal body. That’s why I was referring to internal bodies of each of the institutions, which have to deal with the cases. So for the ethics body, definitely the setting of standards, declaration of assets, with this question mark of how to do it, conflicts of interest. Let’s work together on something which will be, as I said, meaningful and legally sound. This is my dear wish that we together produce and bring to life something which will be well functioning already, hopefully this year. But referring to the debate about the transparency register, which was the interinstitutional negotiation of three institutions, I remember how difficult it was. So here the ambition is to have eight institutions and we will see how it works. I didn’t want to come with any excuses why the Commission didn’t act. I just wanted to explain that this is a heavy task and that we were not passive but now I agree with all of you who said now is the momentum and the expectations are rightly very high.