Ms Ursula von der Leyen President European Commission

 

Dear President,

I would like to thank the Commission for the documents provided on 15 May 2023 by the secretariat of the EU Transparency in the context of the above-mentioned case. My inquiry team has carefully examined the documents in question and would now like to meet with the relevant representatives of the secretariat of the Transparency Register.

The purpose of the meeting is to obtain clarifications about how the secretariat handles complaints and carries out investigations into alleged non-compliance of a registrant with the code of conduct, and more specifically, in relation to the entities concerned in this case. In particular, it would be helpful if, during the meeting, the secretariat could address the points listed in the annex to this letter. 

Could the secretariat please share its availabilities for a meeting with the inquiries officer in charge of the case, Ms Francesca Abbo. We would be grateful if the meeting could take place between 19 and 21 June, if possible.

Yours sincerely, 

Emily O'Reilly
European Ombudsman

Strasbourg, 06/12/2023

 

ANNEX

Points to address during the meeting with the secretariat of the Transparency Register

1) Could the secretariat please explain how it conducts investigations into complaints concerning alleged non-compliance of registrants with the code of conduct, in general, and into complaints TR-C-2022-182 and TR-C-2022-183, in particular?

2) How does the assessment carried out by the secretariat, of the compliance of registrants with the code of conduct in the context of investigations, differ from the monitoring role of the secretariat?

3) How does the secretariat ensure the veracity of the information provided by registrants in the course of the investigations?

4) Did the secretariat consider the argument raised by the complainant on the potential misuse of the accredited access to the Parliament by employees of the consultancy for the interest of the association? If so, how?

5) Regarding the event attended by a policy officer of the consultancy at the European Parliament, could the secretariat clarify how the registration of the policy officer as “self-employed/none” would have enabled her to adequately identify the entity she represented in light of points a), n) and o) of the code of conduct.

6) How did the secretariat assess the potential affiliation between the association and the consultancy, in light of points (h) and (i) of Annex II of the Interinstitutional Agreement?