A strong EU integrity framework is essential for public trust in EU decision making. The current system is complex, with several oversight authorities and multiple, overlapping rules applying to each institution. As the recent Qatargate revelations have demonstrated, the system remains vulnerable to serious breaches. With this in mind, the European Ombudsman has invited high-level speakers from the main oversight authorities as well as the European Commission and European Parliament to discuss the gaps in the architecture of, and compliance with, the integrity framework. What changes are needed to make it stronger? The discussion will also focus on proposals to create an Independent Ethics Body and its potential role in further improving the integrity of the EU administration.

Transcript of this video

James Kanter

You can hear my voice, so that means that the microphone is on.

Good morning or good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be online today. A warm welcome to this conference, which is entitled Building a Stronger EU Integrity Framework, and which has been convened by the European Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly.

My name is James Kanter. I'm a journalist. I'm the host of the politics podcast at EU Scream, and I'm your moderator for this event.

We'll be discussing EU ethics and integrity, but we'll also be discussing the EU's legitimacy and its democratic credentials ahead of next year's European elections.

Recently, we've seen corporate and third country actors, and evidence of that just a few meters from where we're sitting, ready to spend seemingly unlimited amounts to subvert EU decision-making.

So, can the prospect of the EU institutions continuing to self-regulate, continuing to self-police, can that be enough to stop the kind of debasement of ethics that we've seen in other parts of the democratic world?

To open this important and timely event, I'd first like to welcome the European Ombudsman to say a few words. Ombudsman

Emily O'Reilly

Thank you very much, James, and good morning, everyone, and you're very welcome. And I thank you for taking the time to join us today to discuss the creation of a stronger EU integrity framework, and I thank our speakers in particular for accepting the invitation to engage in public debate.

So, as James already said, today's event is taking place six months after Qatargate prompted a laser sharp focus on how the EU safeguards its integrity and, by extension, its credibility and its legitimacy.

Those six months have shown us, however, that the creation of a strong ethical framework sufficient to withstand what Parliament President Metsola described in the immediate aftermath of Qatargate as an attack on our democracy is not straightforward.

The clarity and apparent unity of approach of the early days of the crisis has been replaced by complex debate around the legal basis for certain measures, by concerns about the independence of the mandate of MEPs, and by other issues, political, legal and administrative, that have slowed the finalisation of detailed reform.

We are of course dealing with systems and with cultures around ethical conduct that go far deeper than the crude bribery alleged in Qatargate.

We are trying to construct a defence system around and within our institutions capable of protecting the interests of EU citizens from undue or malign influence on those responsible for creating and administering our laws.

Because let us not forget that the influencing of legislation, the securing of support for questionable regimes, can be and is done in ways that don't necessarily include the drama of the suitcases and bags of cash of this particular scandal.

When a private company handpicks an EU official from a key regulatory DG to get the inside track on legislation vital to that company, or an influential, well-networked former MEP or Commissioner is engaged in order for private interests to access that network, influence is being sought just as it was allegedly sought in Qatargate.

Much of this has, of course, benign and legitimate intent. The question is how to distinguish the benign from the malign, deal with it before it does harm, or sanction it if the harm has already been caused.

My work as European Ombudsman in this area is essentially about influence. Is EU legislation being influenced in ways that dilute the public interest and that are enabled by a failure to deal with conflicts of interest, a lack of transparency, a lax revolving door regime, and with rules that are either not followed or not enforced? On revolving doors alone, our ombudsprudence runs to hundreds of pages of analysis and recommendations for improvements. Improvements do come, but often incrementally and often slowly.

I have often thought that if the money paid as legitimate salaries or fees and not as illegal bribes to some of those who have made the jump from regulator to regulated were made visible, that reform would no longer be quite so incremental or quite so slow.

We have launched inquiries into the systemic issues around this area, as well as individual revolving doors cases relating to the European Investment Bank, the European Banking Authority, the European Defence Agency and the European Commission, among others.

Some cases required fine, context-dependent judgement and careful discrimination to extract black and white conclusions from the grey, although some were very straightforward indeed.

So I think we can all agree that reform is needed, and what we need therefore to discuss are the genuine obstacles to reform and those obstacles that are put there simply to block it.

We also need to look at the ways in which the existing integrity framework, represented here by my office, by Olaf and by the European Court of Auditors, is sufficiently engaged with and respected by the wider administration.

The two key players in this reform are Commission Vice-President Jourová, charged with EU values and transparency, and Parliament President Roberta Metsola.

But neither leader, no matter how strong their personal commitment, how excellent their bona fides, can push effective reform through without wide political and administrative support. And the strength of that support will determine the type of reform package that emerges.

President Metsola's 14-point reform plan is working its way to the various committees and bodies required to give it concrete expression.

On Thursday, Vice-President Jourová will present the Commission's proposal for a new inter-institutional ethics body that will agree common standards for its member institutions, including the Commission and the European Parliament.

There will not be a quick fix, but as the broad shape of these reforms is becoming known, we can discuss whether they will address the root causes of the integrity gaps exposed by Qatargate.

President Mesola's plan is intended to increase the transparency of lobby activities in the Parliament and impose greater constraints on former MEPs who become lobbyists, that is, if it's fully implemented.

The new ethics body will, we understand, create for the first time a permanent forum for different EU institutions and bodies to discuss ethical standards and to hold each other to account for poor implementation, and all of that is very welcome.

But since Qatargate, the citizens of the EU have become a bit more literate and knowledgeable about what a good ethics regime should look like. And what they may well question is the extent to which self-regulation will remain a feature of a new regime, and particularly in the Parliament and the Commission.

Abandoning or significantly reforming self-regulation may be what is needed to make this reform both credible and really effective. But no matter what new regime is put in place, culture will ultimately determine everything. EU institutions are very good at making rules. The reform of an embedded culture is much, much more difficult.

As an Ombudsman, I have found that the strongest and best administrations are those not with the longest list of rules, but rather those whose culture of integrity is so firmly entrenched that they barely need any at all.

A weak new body will be devoured by a weak ethical culture, and changing that culture is a challenge for those who lead our institutions.

In short, we should be clear-sighted about the limitations of any new body. Solutions will not be handed down from on high. The hard work will continue to rest at the door of each separate institution, but hopefully supported by a new body that will insist on the highest of standards.

So I look forward to an open and frank discussion. It has never been more vital in a world that seems in parts to be tilting away from the democratic values that are the lifeblood of the Union, that the Union gets this right.

Thank you very much. Thank you for your attention, and I now hand back to James. Thank you.

James Kanter

Thank you, Emily. Before we get going, some basic housekeeping. Our hashtag for social media is hashtag EODebate. That's hashtag EODebate. Second, we'll aim to turn to you, our audience for Q&A, in about 50 minutes to an hour from now. And when I call on you, please kindly give your name and any affiliation. And please do participate. We do want a range of views.

And now to our panel, I first introduce Vĕra Jourová, who is the European Commission's Vice-President for Values and Transparency.

Back in 2019, President von der Leyen put Ms. Jourová in charge of developing an independent ethics body common to all EU institutions. I'm going to introduce everyone, and then I'll bring you in, and I think we can just sit where we are for this.

Vĕra Jourová

I am calmly sitting. I'm not doing anything.

James Kanter

Try and get a conversation going as well. And just to finish up, Ms. Jourová 's excellent CV. She was previously Minister for Regional Development in the Czech Republic, and formerly, and many of us will remember that, the European Commissioner for Justice.

Katarina Barley is a European Parliament Vice-President, and her portfolio includes transparency issues. She was elected to the Parliament in 2019, leaving the SPD list in Germany. Ms. Barley has previously served as Germany's Justice Minister, among other ministerial portfolios, and she's also been Secretary General of the SPD and worked as a lawyer.

And now from the existing oversight bodies, I'm pleased to welcome George Hyzler, Mr. Hyzler is a member of the European Court of Auditors, which is tasked with ensuring that EU's taxpayer money is well spent, and Mr. Hyzler was appointed Malta's first ever Commissioner for Standards in public life in Malta in 2018, and his reports led to the resignation of two members of cabinet. He's also a former member of the Maltese Parliament and a former government minister.

We also welcome Ville Itälia, Itälä, Itälä, pardon me. Mr. Itälä is Director General of the European Anti-Fraud Office, known as OLAF. Mr. Itälä served in the early 2000s as Finland's Interior Minister. He's been Chairman of Finland's National Coalition Party, and in Europe, he's previously been a member of the European Parliament, as well as a member of the European Court of Auditors.

And now, Vice-President Jourová, it's my pleasure to invite you to speak first for a few minutes. You can sit there or take the podium as you wish. And we're all waiting to see what will be formally announced Thursday on the long-deferred ethics body. Does it come anywhere close to matching the expectations of citizens in the wake of Qatargate? Please.

Vĕra Jourová

I will go there because from there I will have more dominance in the …

Ladies and gentlemen, Madam O'Reilly, dear colleagues, it's quite an important moment for me because this is just two days before we will agree in the Commission on the competencies, composition, and scope of the first ever European ethics body.

And I want to start by quoting what Madam O'Reilly just said. It has never been more vital than now to discuss and to do more to increase the trust of the people in EU institutions. The trust is low, not only regarding EU institutions and EU as such, according to the latest Eurobarometer, I think it's 47%.

Who is higher? Local offices, local municipal councils, medical services, army, police. So we are at 47%.

But what's more difficult to swallow than these numbers is the overall atmosphere. And especially after the Qatargate, but also after some other events, the people in Europe are telling us what are you doing there? What's the standard? What's the moral? We have elected you and you misbehave. I am simplifying that. But you said what are the expectations from the EU citizens. So my guess is that they want us to correct it. And we know we have to correct it quickly because the elections are upcoming. And I think that we all want to see high turnout in the elections. And I think that we want the people who trust that they can change something with their vote, they will come and cast their vote. So these are connected things, the trust and the interest of the people in elections.

I think today we will speak about the architecture of different levels, different bodies, different structures, which should work together.

And let me maybe enumerate the elements of it. For me, the number one pillar of the ethics, architecture of ethics, is the moral integrity of each of the members, each politician who work in the EU institutions.

Let's not skip that because we need to see full transparency for the activities and work of the politicians and we want to see, now we say it from the side of the citizens, we want to see high moral and we want to see the high ethical standards being followed.

I heard in the European Parliament that without the ethics body, there will be no ethics. And I heavily, I sharply disagree with that because if somebody says it, who received the trust of his, it was her, her voters, I would not be able to say that. It's my own decision to enter politics and it's my responsibility to provide transparent service to the citizens and while doing that, keeping high moral standards.

The second part of the story is, are the codes of ethics of each institutions. I speak about each institutions. I have in mind the institutions under Article 13, where we have nine institutions and each of them has a different role, different position in democratic system, different duties, different sensitivities and different, also different space for misbehaviour. And here I want to say, we must not forget that each of these institutions have their codes and have their professional staff who have to go after disciplinary issues. And I will always emphasize that without these structures functioning well, we will not be able to correct what has been damaged.

The third thing, the institutions which deal with criminal offenses. Again, the story about briefcase is full of money. Well, it's probably money which has the origin in some criminal activity. So it's for OLAF, it's for EPPO in case it is covering the suspicion covers the EU money or the national prosecution if it is something else.

But it's, we have institutions which have to cover these criminal offenses.

What's missing? I do believe and I work hard on creation of something which I believe is missing and it's the ethics body, which should cover all nine institutions, which will be too much for some and too little for others.

And when…. . Can I? Two more minutes.

James Kanter

Absolutely.

Vĕra Jourová

Because now I am becoming passionate, because now I am becoming passionate explaining the reactions of different institutions.

So listen, in 2020 I sent a letter or I think Ursula sent a letter, simply the Commission sent a letter to all the institutions as the invitation for the debate about the ethics body. We received quick no from most of them. We received hesitant yes from the committee of regions and committee of economic and social affairs.

And I very much like the saying for which I got from Margrethe Vestager. She said, it's always better to receive slow yes than quick no.

I received quick no in 2020 and we knew that we have to do again and better, which means first to consult there and back. I spoke to all the presidents, some Vice-Presidents, I spoke to the professional staff. We really have two years of heavy consultations. I spoke to Madam O’Reilly about that three, two years, two times.

And now we are coming with the proposal where I hope will establish the body which will receive strong yes, slow but strong yes.

What I understand from the reactions, in the European Parliament there is not a unified voice. The resolution said that the body should have investigative powers, should go after individual cases, should be allowed, should be authorized to check the declarations of assets and the after mandate activities. And this is not what I am proposing. I'm proposing the standard setting body which will also serve as the platform where all the nine institutions will be represented and these all will work together on establishing the set of standards.

I can go later on which standards on what. So this is what will come on Thursday. Believe me or not, I still don't know the final version of it because now Hebdo is sitting on it. These are influential people, the heads of our cabinets. And so I am curious what will be the result. There are still sseveral l unclear matters and one important.

So thank you for giving me this space. I was said it will be immediately discussion but of course I had to use it properly and long. Thank you very much.

James Kanter

Thank you. Thank you very much Vice-President Jourová.

Ms. Barley, Vice-President Barley, can I invite you next to say a few words perhaps in response to Ms. Jourová? Just a few minutes, some responses.

But in response to Ms. Jourová but also on how our 705 member parliament can end a system of well, you know, pure self-policing which is what we currently have.

Katarina Barley

Yes, well thank you very much for this invitation to this very distinguished panel and I am sure a very distinguished audience too. Well, it comes to no surprise to you that Qatargate really shook us up.

I mean, everybody knows that where power is there is temptation and there is corruption but this sort of scandal I think nobody would have expected a colleague to sit on suitcases and bags full of money underneath their baby's bed or something like that.

At least that was my first reaction to it.

And you mentioned it, I'm responsible for transparency and Vĕra Jourová and myself and the
Council, the German council president at the time had the pleasure to negotiate the Transparency Register and to form an inter-institutional agreement.

And looking back, I would say it went so smooth and it did because probably the point of following and endorsing was seen by a lot of people in all the institutions that not so important and that they maybe already realized we then have nice rules but let's see if they are really being followed and endorsed and they have not been as we have seen.

So Parliament is accountable to citizens probably, well even more than the other institutions. The MEPs are in the spotlight, they have to be elected every five years if they want to. So I think the ethical standards that have been mentioned should be, I mean, absolutely self-explaining for every single MEP, of course for every civil servant too, for every member of the Commission, but I think for MEPs it is even, it is a core part of what they have to stand for.

So we are currently reforming the framework of integrity and transparency as has already been mentioned. I don't have to touch too much upon this. We’ve had two resolutions in 2022 and 2023 that go very far, especially when it comes to the ethics body. Commissioner Jourová mentioned it in the resolution. We ask for a very strong ethics body with power to investigate, to make concrete proposals and these are not, these proposals are not in the 14 points as explicitly as that, but the Parliament has expressed this will.

Now, what do the 705 members think? Of course they do not have a coherent opinion and voice and we have seen that, for example, when it came to the cooling off period that has already been voted in the bureau, it has become a six months cooling off period. A lot of political forces, for me this is difficult now, I mean of course I am wearing two hats, ask for a lot more, 24 months is the maximum period of time that you can have transitory payment, I lack the word now, after you leave the Parliament, so this would have been sort of logical to adjust the two. It has not been done, it was a tight decision as I said, but yeah, there you see.

Of course we have constant discussions that go between freedom of mandate being strengthened very hardly to the need for transparency that has always been there, but is there even more now after this terrible scandal.

And yes, we are moving along, we are moving forward with the 14 points, some hope that they will not be the only measures that will be taken, but even that is not a unanimous opinion.

So I am very curious to see the proposal of the Commission and looking forward to the discussion on it. Thank you.

James Kanter

Thank you Vice-President Barley, thank you very much.

I would now like to, without delay, get some response from our oversight bodies that we are very lucky to have on the panel today, to get them to shed a little bit more light on what has been said. This is sort of a quick response round, maybe two to three minutes if that is okay, we will come back to you for a deeper dive. I would like to start with you Mr. Hyzler. As we have heard, the new ethics body would harmonize, would aim to harmonize transparency standards in nine EU institutions, but it will not have investigative or sanctioning powers. What do you make of Ms. Jourová 's proposals and what Ms. Barley said?

George Hyzler

Well, first of all, it is all a question of ensuring citizens' trust in the European institutions. So what are we trying to achieve? Will this new body help to increase that trust? And I do believe that harmonized standards could do that, could help, could contribute in that direction because there are, every institution has its own code of ethics, but the interpretation of the rules lies within that institution and they are interpreted differently.

Of course, so as far as harmonized standards are concerned, common interpretation of standards, I would have personally absolutely no problem with that. I would do, I would, and when I say I would, the court of auditors would have a problem with relinquishing jurisdiction of, as regards investigation and sanctioning of its members and staff. It is grounded in the treaty where, for instance, just by way of example, if a member of the court of auditors had to be found, had to be accused of misconduct, it is up to the Court of Justice to impose the sanctions. And so I don't think that it's a matter of relinquishing or changing that rule as such. We do have that as well. We do have that already in place. We also have in place standards that are not standards only designed by the court of auditors, but we form part of standards set by INTOCY and we abide by those standards that are applicable to auditors in public service.

So any initiative that will strengthen the citizens' trust in the European institutions, in the European project, I would certainly support. But the thing is, how would this contribute? Because if we take Qatargate as an example, Qatargate is a straightforward case of corruption, if that were to be the case. No code of ethics could address that particular problem. What we could say is this, the European citizen would judge us by the way we handle how we react to a problem of this nature. So human nature being what it is, I don't think that the citizen is surprised that there could be a case of corruption. It's not right, of course, but the European citizen expects us to react at zero tolerance in the case that arises. So my point is, in my previous life, I was responsible in politics for consumer protection. I used to tell the ordinary trader, when you have a complaint, thank God, because you will be judged by how you treat that complaint. Because a product could be defective, fine, but if you treat it well, you've got a customer who will come back.

James Kanter

Thank you very much, Mr. Hyzler. Thank you very much. Yes, I think in the context of the European court of auditors, what I understand is that peer pressure has really been exercised a bit more strongly since some of the ethical questions arose around the work of the court.

Mr. Itälä of OLAF, your initial response, please, to what we heard from Ms. Jourová and Ms. Barley and Mr. Hyzler, for that matter, your two to three minutes, please.

Ville Itälä

Yes, thank you. First of all, of course, we support Jourová 's proposal to get a stronger with the fight against corruption and fraud. And during the years, we have seen this happening, not maybe with a so big case that Qatargate this, but I think now it's a momentum to improve. And there, we have discussed a lot that it's ethics body important, but not to have a duplication with our work. Because there is OLAF, there is EPPO, there's like Belgian police working with this field too. So there's already quite many players. Why do increase? But if we have a good level of regulation, we can have a good level of regulation. And I think that's the main point here. If I understood right, it's not there.

So thank you for that. But the main point here is what I want to say. Even the ethics body, it might be not enough. As the colleagues said, we have a lot of regulation already in place. But like OLAF, we have difficulties with the Parliament, with other institutions too, not only with the parliament, but now we are talking about Parliament case here.

And in the regulation, it's clear that we have the mandate to look the members other way, to conduct any fraud.

But the Parliament don't let us go to the members' offices to investigate. We cannot look their IT equipment. So it's impossible. Regulation is there, but the Parliament is not implementing.

So I have to say, let us do our work. It will be the big step already.

James Kanter

Thank you. And perhaps you could expand on that. I mean, there is a mandate that OLAF has, but that mandate has not been accepted by all of the institutional players. And what you're appealing for here today is for that to change.

Ville Itälä

Yes, absolutely. There are different ways. Like in fact, Parliament has signed the inter-institutional agreement 99. But somehow they don't just let us to go. And we don't fight with the security service guys to try to go to the offices. Then we just don't go. But then there are some instances like a court of justice who has not signed this. And it's a shame that. But this concerns the members.

In the Parliament, we can investigate the stuff, but not the members.

James Kanter

And can I, before we go to Mr. Hyzler, can I follow up on that a little bit more and say, well, had you had some of these investigative powers over the Parliament, might we be in a position where Qatargate never happened? Because after all, it was the Belgians that, as we understand it, stepped in and did the investigative work.

Ville Itälä

Yeah, in theory, of course, we have investigated the people concerned. We could see these issues maybe in theory beforehand. So it's possible.

James Kanter

Thank you. Mr. Hizler, we've already leapt into one of the most important parts of this panel, I think, which is what kind of pushback are the oversight agencies experiencing? And especially from the Commission in the Parliament, which are the two principal bodies that we really are discussing here. And when it comes to the Parliament, for instance, I should say that Transparency International this morning blasted the Parliament for blocking accountability measures. So this is a very live issue. So with that, can I just ask you what kind of pushback the court of auditors has experienced? And perhaps in particular, you could reference the report of 2019, which was a sort of auditing report, an ethical frameworks report, where if I understand things correctly, freedom of mandate by some MEPs seemed to be almost freedom from scrutiny.

George Hyzler

Well, of course, Commission Parliament are made up of politicians, by definition. Politicians are representatives of the people. And they feel that that is their mandate. They can speak to whoever they like, whenever they like, however they like. I was a politician myself, so this is not a criticism, of course. It's just, you know, and they are elected. So basically, they are there because the people put them there. So whereas, for instance, when it comes to nominations to certain positions in the European institutions, the nominees can go through certain checks on their background, on the moral integrity. Elected members do not do that.

So I would say, first of all, put some responsibility on the political parties before they put their candidates out there, because that is in itself a problem.

As regards the pushback on the report, the court of auditors has made a couple of reports, referring to the 2019 report, where there were various gaps identified.

Now, it's this experience that I am going through with the court of auditors, where all the recommendations are discussed and agreed to, by agreed, I don't mean they're accepted, but before the report is published, the itinerant can confirm this. Itinerant can confirm this. You are discussed with the with the audit team, which to me comes as a surprise. I'm used to a system where I listen to all sides and then I decide. I'm not used to a system where before I decide, I have to agree on a conclusion. How the conclusion is going to be framed, how it's going to be phrased. And in the case of the 2019 reports, there were various gaps identified, for instance, on the question of overall strategy. So the Parliament, for instance, we do not need an overall strategy on ethics. We just don't need it. So the court of auditors has recommended an overall strategy and the Parliament says we don't need it. Just one example, I mean, on the issue of verifying declarations of assets.

You practically take them at face value. Now, there again, my personal experience is different. A declaration of assets has to be verified and it has to be updated from time to time. And it's just not, not just your declaration of assets, but that of your spouse, of your minor children, or whatever. Because obviously, if one wants to make a declaration of assets serves from my perspective to two functions, two purposes. First of all, it's a question of pre-empting or identifying possible conflicts of interest.

But it also serves for, as a basis, when you have your assets declared, of corruption. In other words, if from one year to the next you declare a substantial increase in your assets, it has to be explained.

Now, if these are not verified from time to time on a regular basis, they don't serve any purpose. They're just there, filed away, and that's it. But as regards your question regarding the pushback, of course, the court of auditors, whenever it makes a recommendation, it is very happy that those recommendations are taken on board and very disappointed when they are not taken on board. Because obviously, they believe in they, we believe in those conclusions, and we would be hopeful that the auditee would be embracing them.

James Kanter

Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Hyzler. That's fascinating, especially about the way that these reports are agreed to.

Ombudsman.

George Hyzler

Not the conclusion.

James Kanter

Not necessarily the conclusion.

Ombudsman, can I turn to you? What pushback would you identify in terms of some of the cases, some of the past cases? I guess I would think of your work around tobacco lobbying and the work about past President Barroso, who went to Goldman Sachs.

Emily O'Reilly

Yeah, I suppose when I reflect on those particular cases, I'm thinking that what we're trying to do is to sort of lessen the degree of self-regulation in the Commission. We don't have a role in relation to what the MEPs do. That's handled internally. So in the case of President, former President Barroso, we got a few complaints in relation to the fact that he had moved to Goldman Sachs, and the circumstances in which that had been allowed by the Commission. And what we looked at, we weren't looking at him particularly, or him as an individual, we were looking at how the Commission handled this. And we made a number of recommendations, some of which weren't accepted, including that there'd be a longer cooling off period for former President at the Commission and also commissioners. But we also recommended that they broaden their three people on the Ad Hoc Ethics Committee in the Commission, we wanted a broader range of expertise, different views. And we also asked for the power of own initiative investigation to be given to the Ethics Committee, so that instead of just being asked on a case-by-case basis to investigate, that they would have the power to do it themselves. And both of those recommendations were rejected by the commission.

And it goes back to the point I was making at the beginning, it's, you know, self-regulation, I think we're all saying citizens are much more aware of what constitutes a good ethics body. It's independent and it can choose its investigations and isn't told or instructed what to do.

Tobacco law being, to me, was always a strange one. I mean, we recommended that all of the meetings that the Commission has, at whatever level, be proactively published. I mean, they are obliged and they do publish meetings with the Secretary General, with the Cabinet, with the Commissioner and so on. But we recommended that all meetings, and this was in line with the spirit of the UN Convention on Tobacco, which seeks to narrow the interaction between tobacco lobbyists and administration.

And honestly, I thought this was like an easy win for them and for us. What's the big deal? Just say, you know, that so-and-so met with so-and-so. And they, again, they, this was refused, which really does puzzle me.

So there are two instances of where we had got, you know, pushback. And I think had they been implemented, I think it would have strengthened the trust of citizens in relation to how these matters are dealt with internally by the Commission.

Revolving Doors, we've done loads of investigations into that. We did one involving 100 files of Commission officials who had left the Commission, not all to go into the private sector, but some into civil society, academia and so on. And we looked at how the Commission had implemented its rules in relation to that. And we found that it was a very, I think it only happened on one or two occasions that people were prevented from taking up a post.

So again, we've made recommendations in relation to how they can, in a sense, police what happens afterwards. Some were taken up, some were not. So it's always very, very slow. We get tiny little things are agreed to, well, not always tiny, sometimes quite significant ones, but it's push, push, push. And I was always hoping that when Qatargate happened, that there's nothing like a crisis to accelerate these things.

I mean, the much vaunted Haute Autorité in France was prompted by a crisis involving a minister in tax. But so it's interesting to me to observe the impact of the huge scandal that was and is Qatargate on what actually emerges.

James Kanter

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I mean, very interesting to hear from all the oversight bodies there on inability to inspect MEPs' offices, ignored recommendations, and a resistance to basic transparency measures at the European Commission.

And what the ombudsman said about all those hopes being raised in the wake of Catergate, you know, never letting a good scandal go to waste. There is this question, you know, sort of what happened to the momentum. And I think that's why I'll leap straight into this next section. And perhaps I can put the question to you, Vice-President Jourová. You know, you speak about the, you've spoken about the legal obstacles, right, to a single body. We know that there are academics like Professor Alemanno who have put forward solutions to this, that this is somehow surmountable. To what degree are these legal hurdles? The idea that such a model as well would perhaps be too French. The ombudsman mentioned the French model. To what degree is all of this debate simply masking a political unwillingness to embrace these changes? And to what degree is it revealing that the institutions are just unwilling to cooperate? To what degree is this a political problem?

Vĕra Jourová

I didn't speak about the legal obstacles before, did I?

James Kanter

Not too much.

Vĕra Jourová

Because I really think that this is the matter of good politics, good policy, and moral sense. And by saying that, of course, I'm not saying that we cannot oversee the legal limitations for the new body. To establish a new body which will deal with the ethical standards, we have a chance to do it as a legally sound, efficient, meaningful body by means of the interinstitutional agreement. Why by such agreement? Because simply the body is not foreseen in the treaty. So this is not a legal excuse. This is not something which should be ignored. This is a key thing. Because if we should speak about the ethics body, which would have investigative and sanctioning powers, we would need to have it in the treaty. And why? Because such a body's decision would be immediately challenged at the court for a good reason. Because to investigate somebody and sanction, I can imagine that there will be immediate reaction. So this is what I mean that we want to establish the ethics body which will be legally sound. And I did not mean it as an excuse for taking weak political decision. It's not like that.

One procedural comment, the proposal for the ethics body, including its competencies, the scope, the personal scope, the composition, procedures, it will be the proposal of the Commission which will appear on the table of other aid institutions.

We will have a political meeting, hopefully, hopefully still in sometimes at the beginning of July. I do hope we will manage to have such meeting. And it will be kick off. It will be the momentum to start the common work on the final proposal on how the ethics body will look like.

Yes, so I just want us to imagine that the Commission's proposal is not set in stone, that we want all the institutions to have the strongest possible ownership. And that's why they should be the co-creators of the final scope and format of the body.

Saying that I am not indicating that I will, how many negatives I have that, I am not indicating that I will not defend the Commission's proposal. I will because I have many, many good reasons. But at the same time, it has to be an open discussion and the subject for common work.

James Kanter

I hear your conviction on the legal point and I do take it on board. But let me push you just a little bit more on the political dimension to all of this because I think it's a little bit the elephant in the room. Let me put it this way.

Has Miss Metsola got too much at stake in terms of her European ambitions within her own EPP group? Has Miss von der Leyen, also in the EPP family, has she run out of political capital for doing this kind of ethical work? Would the will to put together a single unitary body be there but for these political issues?

Vĕra Jourová

I am not here to assess the proposal of Madame Metsola. I spoke to the President Metsola and she was very constructive. And she said, yes, let's work together on the strongest possible ethics body. So this is what I heard from her. This is, I think, from what we can read through her 14 points that there is a really strong political will to engage in correcting. I spoke about corrections at the beginning. So in correcting the situation and increasing the trust of people. But I will offer you another elephant in the room, maybe not in this room.

I don't think the ethics body should serve as the body replacing the internal structures of the institutions. This is what I already said before. And now I want to be well understood. There are voices that the individual cases, the assessment of declarations of assets and the post mandate activities and so on, should be outsourced to the ethics body.

My question is, why? Is it because the internal structures are not able to do such objective assessment for the institution? That's a question mark. I have that feeling that it is the case that this push for outsourcing means that we are not able to do it at home internally for many different reasons. That's for me. It's important. And I don't want to sacrifice the ethics body to this.

James Kanter

Thank you very much. Vice-President Barley, again a little bit on the sort of political side of things.

What expectations do you have that creation of this new body, which will be in formation in the run up to the next European elections, will it make a tangible difference for, let's say, S&D MEPs who feel very damaged by Qatargate, again ahead of the next election? I mean, many conservatives and right wingers say that the scandal isn't their business. They can continue as they've always done with self-policing. And Transparency International, also this morning, heavily criticized President Metsola, herself a conservative, for being, quote, nowhere to be seen, unquote, in the reform effort.

So my question is, you're sitting next to Ms. Jourová, has she helped you? Has she helped the S&D and MEPs in the build up to the next election, given all that's happened?

Katarina Barley

Well, probably from all the people I've worked with on these issues, not only Transparency, but everything that sort of goes with it, because it's a bigger picture. It's rule of law if you want. I know that Vĕra Jourová is my closest ally.

I can't, I don't know what is happening in the Commission, you know? I have my presumption.

Vĕra Jourová

I am former social democrat, if it helps you.

Katarina Barley

Very good, thank you. No, but I know that she personally is always on the right side. That's what I can say. But of course, you have constraints within your body, so I don't want to elaborate on that, but that is how it is.

Now, I was very grateful that within the Parliament, there was an.., there was an agreement that this was not a party political thing. And it was the conservatives and we knew who stated that. And from, apart from very few incidents, they acted accordingly. They said, this is a problem that we have altogether now. And this is, as was already said, this is a criminal offense. This is something that is not usual for a Parliament that can happen just like this. This is a very singular incident.

So I was very impressed by this approach to tackle this together.

But of course, you have your convictions. These convictions were there before Qatargate and they still are there. And they don't purely go along party political lines.

So, within the conservatives, there are some who would like to go further. Within the social democrats, there are some who wouldn't want to go that far. And that's the same in every political group.

But we have taken, of course, the decision to implement our 15 points and to apply them to ourselves, even if the Parliament doesn't go that far.

So we will do this because we feel a responsibility out of this scandal. And in general, we're very much committed to this idea of transparency. But I think you said it, something that free mandate means, no, you said it, means freedom of being scrutinized. And that is true for some.

And we don't only have this position in this context, but also in others. When it comes to financial businesses, we also see this. And we even have those who say, okay, then let's go and declare something. And we have the saying, okay, for them that is declare and don't care.

I mean, then I say that, for example, I own assets here and there, but it's still, then I'm transparent, but I can still do whatever I want. And that, of course, is not the idea.

I mean, if you have a conflict of interest, there should be more consequence than just making it transparent.

And there's one thing I really have to stress, because it has been mentioned several l times, even the resolution of the Parliament does not ask for the competence of sanctioning of the ethics body. I think nobody does that because we are all completely aware that that would need a change of treaties.

So investigation, yes. And we do have that. I mean, even our advisory board that we already have in the European Parliament has the possibility to ask for external support investigating something.

So I think this is not such a big step, but nobody asks for sanctioning.

James Kanter

And you'll certainly through the process of the formation of the ethics body, you'll keep fighting for that.

Katarina Barley

Absolutely.

James Kanter

Mr. Hyzler, can I…we're on the topic of the Parliament. There's some work that's been done by the court on how parliamentary assistants, and again, here we get back to, you know, how in the real world we find out about wrongdoing, how parliamentary assistants don't feel themselves empowered to report wrongdoing, to be whistleblowers.

What did the court conclude needed to be done here? And what does your experience in Malta tell us about the power that's needed by effective ethics bodies more generally?

George Hyzler

Well, first of all, as regards whistleblowing, I think from surveys that were conducted, most would have replied that they did not feel that their colleagues would actually report wrongdoing. And if they did report wrongdoing, they probably wouldn't feel protected.

Now, of course, whistleblowers are vulnerable. Whatever kind of protection we try to give them, they are always vulnerable. I've dealt with many whistleblowers. And in my former role, I did suggest amendments to the law that would empower the commissioner for standards to give whistleblower status to individuals who would reveal wrongdoing, internal wrongdoing.

Of course, there's always a tricky issue. People in general don't like whistleblowers. Colleagues don't like whistleblowers. Whistleblowers are by definition people who've betrayed someone. And so they are looked upon in a certain way.

But it's probably not a problem that they are looked upon. But it's probably one of the few ways of getting to uncover wrong misconduct.

James Kanter

And on that point, I mean, this is again on your agenda, isn't it? And you'll fight for that too. Great.

Now, I'm going to open the floor for questions. Can I just have an initial show of hands as to the interest in the room? Go on, don't be shy. Yes, very good. Terrific. Okay.

I did see a question from Mikhail from Transparency International.

Is there a microphone that's going around? Or we'll just invite you to stand up. So very good.

Mikhail

Thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you to the panel for the really interesting discussion.

And I just want to say first of all that we're so impressed by the work that you've done, Ombudsman, in the last 10 years because there's been so much progress in terms of bringing these issues to light and also getting the institutions to act. And the institutions don't always do everything you ask. But what is clear is that when you bring out a report, and they sit up and listen, and that's really taken the work of this office to a whole new level. And it's incredibly important, I think, for citizens and for European democracy.

We brought out a small report this morning on progress on the Qatargate reforms since December last year. And the main conclusion from that, I think, and I think it's also apparent from this discussion, is that very little is actually happening, and in particular at the Parliament.

And that if you look at the list of reforms that was proposed by the Parliament in December, endorsed by President Metsola in her 14-point plan and then by the Congress of Presidents, the only real progress that's been made is introducing staff training.

And the sitting MEPs so far haven't really felt anything. They haven't had to do anything in order to improve the transparency and integrity regime of the Parliament. It's quite the opposite. You know, we had two MEPs who were found guilty of harassing their staff out of apparently 34 complaints, according to Politico, since 2019.

These two MEPs still sit in their political groups, including yours, Madam Vice-President.

After Qatargate, 100 travel declarations were submitted in the space of a few weeks because MEPs realized that they had not been complying with their obligation to report travel and events paid for by third parties. Almost all of these declarations are from countries that don't respect the same democratic values as we do.

There are sanctions that the Parliament can impose for submitting these declarations late, as they were. The Parliament hasn't done anything, maybe because the president was also one of the ones who didn't submit them on time. And there are so many examples where the Parliament isn't even applying its own rules.

And I fully agree here with the point that the commissioner is making, which is the Parliament should not be hiding behind the need for a strong ethics body because there is a need for a strong ethics body.

It should be doing now what it can and should already be doing now on the base of the rules that exist at the moment. And so my question really to you, Madam Vice-President, is what are you going to do to make sure that six months after Qatargate, the Parliament is finally going to introduce the reforms for which it doesn't need any political support from others. It can do it all by itself.

Katarina Barley

Well, the truth to that is we have a lot of different bodies who have to implement. We have the AFCO committee, we have the bureau, we have the COP. And I mean, I mean, OK, I'm getting into trouble now. But of course, there are people who don't want it to go quickly.

Because we have elections next year. And the longer you have the topic on the table, the longer you can talk about Qatargate. And that is also a political point for some. That's one point.

The other point is that I'm in the bureau and the bureau has only very few of these 14 measures to take.

We have taken one, which is the cooling off period.

There is another one that has been taken, which is the access, the limitation of access to former former MEPs.

And we're going to take one hopefully still this month or next month, which concerns the whistleblowers, which for me is the most important one, actually, because it is the only one, if we talk about what could have prevented the scandal from happening or what could have revealed it earlier, it's the only one. And it's a crying shame that the European institutions don't apply their own legislation, which is a general problem, but that we don't have rules according to the whistleblower directive, I find ridiculous. And I hope that we will get there very soon.

But there, for example, now it is being said the staff has to be involved here. We are at the moment having elections for the staff representation. So we will wait until the staff representation has constituted itself, which will already bring us a bit further.

And we have introduced a two step approach in the… in the bureau, which I find a good thing. With the former secretary general, we got a proposal and we voted on it then. And this time we have discussion and we might ask things and then they come back to us. So process is a bit longer.

But you're absolutely right. We have to be quicker. And a lot of us are saying this publicly and internally.

I don't I mean, to be very clear, President Metsola is not amongst them who want to slow it down. I'm very I'm very sure about that. She's doing her utmost. But not everybody is doing it.

That's what I would say. We're in the in the in the bureau are pushing and I'm very, very hopeful that we will have the whistleblower decision before the… before the summer break.

I would I would our intention was to have everything decided before the summer break.

AFCO is also sort of at the end of it. But there I'm not sure of the times, timeframe.

James Kanter

Can I bring in Mr. Itälä to talk a bit to these points?

Ville Itälä

Yeah, I just want to say that it was two weeks ago, very important improvement in Parliament when they voted this out, Resolution, there was one article by a reporter saying that they should give the access for OLAF to MEPs offices and premises and recognize our mandate for code of conducting in Parliament.

That's what we have negotiated many years. And now the plenary voted that there. I'm really happy for that, that's some development.

But it's such a resolution, it needs to be implemented still by the bureau. But when the whole plenary voted in favor, so there's something good to happen in the Parliament in this sense.

James Kanter

Excellent. Thank you very much. And I just need to note that Ms. YJourová is going to have to leave at 11.45. So any burning questions for the Vice-President, please. For the Vice-President, I shall pick on you next time.

Vĕra Jourová

I will be short…Yeah. And please introduce yourself.

Christian Beck

I'm Christian Beck. I work for Daniel Freund, who's rapporteur in the European Parliament for the EU ethics body. The Vice-President we met already. Thank you very much. My question would be to reply to what you said, that it is indeed a question whether the EU ethics body should replace the bodies of the individual institutions, whether a common external body would be better suited than each institution dealing with their own problems inside.

And I would argue that there have been indications that for both of our institutions, that could be an advantage to have a more external sort of checks, investigation, and proposing what then the responsibles could do like in the European Parliament, we have 26 cases of violations of the Code of Conduct without a single financial penalty imposed. I don't think that's indicating a strong body. It's probably mentioned in the analysis of TI as well.

And in the Commission, former commissioner Avramopoulos asked whether he could join Mr. Panceri's organization. And instead of checking what the former commissioner proposed, that like they have not dangerous funding, this was never checked on the basis of documents. It was not insisted that he could only do this function when the organization would have effectively registered and published these documents. Instead, everybody believed the former commissioner because in the end of the day, it's people working in the context of the commission. It's not external. It's not this additional credibility that in our analysis that could have. So I wonder if you believe that the EU institutions are inherently better than the institutions of the French Republic, when it was decided that the Haute Autorité would be better suited doing this more externally than within the institutions that have been responsible before. Thank you.

Vĕra Jourová

Yes, I do.

James Kanter

I mean, if I can, I'll try and expand on that very briefly. I mean, let me put it in more sort of journalistic terms.

Vĕra Jourová

Don't give me a chance to answer like that.

James Kanter

And then you can come back to our other colleague. What's really to stop? I mean, if you think about what happened in the Cruz case, if you think about the Avramopoulos case, what's really to stop sitting and departing commissioners getting high paid work, right, involving these conflicts of interest in the future?

Vĕra Jourová

There are three things. First of all, the internal ethics committee has to work full steam, yeah? And it's again the same story Mr. Itälä said, let us do our own work. This is exactly it.

So the commission, independent ethics committee is working, is assessing the cases. The second layer is the reputational blow to everybody who is at stake. And I think that it was case of Nelly Cruz. It was the case of Mr. Barroso. Not sure about Dimitris Avramopoulos, where the case is now.

And while we are all accountable to real people, to the voters, we are scandalized in the media. Sometimes we deserve it. We don't have mandates from the gods. So that's why I mean reputational blow, which is coming is always also a big punishment for everybody. And sometimes it is a stop for the people to continue in politics.

And the third layer, and it is what we are working now on, it's the ethics body, because the ethics body will read the proposal. It will not be teethless. We will agree with the institutions on the standards, on the rules, and they will have to be implemented and enforced internally in each institution.

James Kanter

And where are the teeth?

Vĕra Jourová

Well, here is the pressure that the institutions who will be part of the ethics body will have the obligation to embed the rules into their internal rules and to implement that, to enforce it and to sanction in case somebody will fail to do that.

James Kanter

And so there would be sanctions between the institutions?

Vĕra Jourová

Inside the institutions.

James Kanter

And one of the, before we let you go.

Vĕra Jourová

And the comparison with the French body, well, I don't know whether we didn't speak about the money here. We plan the body, which will cost 0.6 600,000 euro a year, three people, the staff and the secretariat. And you can throw stones on me and say that the ethics cannot be paid by money. But it is also a factor for us to establish the body, which will be efficient and also economic. And that we are not creating the new office, which will not only have a weak position because it's not foreseen in the treaty, but also it will require a lot of money to establish the office. I will give you an example. In the commission, we have 5 000 disciplinary cases in 2020.

And it was handled by our internal structure. Just imagine if only part of the cases would have to go to the French like body, how many people would be needed to do that.

James Kanter

So before we let you go, I mean, one of the other issues that has arisen as part of our conversation this morning is the political messaging that the ethics body might provide, right? It's either an opportunity or a lost opportunity to reassure voters that Brussels is cleaning itself up.

Is there part of the way that the ethics body is going to be rolled out that will be a message to voters ahead of the next elections? Will there be a moment that you foresee where that can happen?

Vĕra Jourová

I think the next week the voters will be yawning. It's nothing so sexy. Okay, so Brussels established another body.

What will be important.

James Kanter

And therein lies the problem.

Vĕra Jourová

Well, I am realistic. I sometimes go to a pub in Czechia, so I hear the real troubles that people have. But what will become a real message, I think, for the voters will be the standards themselves.

Because there will be a clear set of standards regarding travel expenditures, post-mandate activities, gifts, I don't know, different kinds of privileges which should be pushed to the absolute minimum.

The people suffer in Europe, and many people suffer, and I think that they don't want to see privileges.

And so this will be something which has to be explained to the general public before the elections.

And here is the timing issue, because if we manage to establish the ethics body, to start working on the first set of agreed standards, it should be done before the elections.

Because the people will expect us to deliver on that, to say, yes, we want your trust, we want your vote, and we will behave according to these rules. And the rules would have to be also simple and understandable.

James Kanter

Thank you very much. We'll let you go. Thank you so much, Vice-President Jourová

Vĕra Jourová

I’m leaving! Enjoy and thank you very much. It was an inspirational debate.

James Kanter

Terrific. So I saw a few other hands up. Please don't be shy. Please can I. Yes, second row there. Thank you. Please introduce yourself.

Ovidian Ráczu

Hi, good afternoon, everyone. My name is Ovidian Ráczu. I'm from the Inspection and Control Office of Frontex.

James Kanter

Maybe one more time, because we missed your…

Ovidian Ráczu

My name is Ovidian Ráczu. I'm from the Inspection and Control Office of Frontex. My question would have been, is the EU ethics body also overseeing the EU agencies, or is it simply just meant for the EU institutions as an attempt, like you said, for Brussels to clean itself up? Thank you.

James Kanter

Thank you very much for that question. Actually, it's really… I mean, this question of the agencies, right, is a fascinating one. And in fact, I would turn to Mr. Hizler to some degree to shed some light on this, because at least the court has audited the agencies. And I think a few of them came up.

George Hyzler

There was an audit on one of the agencies. By the way, these agencies are some. Special reports are sampled. So it doesn't mean that because something is found lacking in one agency, that's the only agency that has that problem. It is very likely there are similar problems in other agencies as well. I'm saying this because I wouldn't like to single out the agency as if it's doing something wrong and everybody else is squeaky clean.

But with revolving doors, for instance, there was an issue with revolving doors in agencies, mainly because agencies, especially higher temporary staff, so there's a high turnover of staff and they tend to take on jobs that could be controversial.

But I'm sure that Vĕra would have the agencies in mind.

I think the agencies have already been invited to form part of the Transparency Register.

I don't think they have taken it on board, but there was an invitation, if I'm not mistaken, to be part of the Transparency Register.

So the likelihood is that it would. I mean, the idea, I'm sure, is to include the entire, all the components of the galaxy. I mean, so. But at the end of the day, it is in everybody's interest to send the right message out there.

Of course, the political side of this debate, the other, think in terms of the next elections. The oversight bodies do not really care about the next elections.

We would like to see things improve independently of the time frames when we don't have to fit into any time frames related to elections. So this is just to make the point.

James Kanter

Which is a very interesting point because the more that we look at a deadline, perhaps the less chance, the greater the chance we reach a lowest common denominator result. So deadlines are not always helpful in that regard.

George Hyzler

Do you worry me?

James Kanter

Yeah. Ms. Barley.

Katarina Barley

I found very interesting what the Commissioner just said because, of course, in the end it is also a question of resources. And if we now include all the agencies and we stick to a budget of 600,000 euros, I mean, imagine how many controls you can actually progress in. And ,and… . Sorry, I forgot we're going to vote on the conditionality mechanism next time. And I'm fighting there for better control because we have the rules.

And that is my criticism. And it's unfortunate that Vĕra Jourová is not there anymore.

My criticism with this plan to set up this sort of new ethics body because we will get another set of rules, but we will not get a better implementation. And what I find even more important, a better control. For the transparency register, I don't know how many people we have who actually take care of it. I think it's something like two or three. And they are busy with just handling it, just doing the stuff you need to do. They don't have any capacity to control. And I don't blame them for it.

So we have to rely even there on the goodwill and the good faith and the culture, which works with probably 90 percent, but we're not going to get the other 10 percent.

So if we…I see the advantage of including more institutions...

George Hyzler

that was just a suggestion…

Katarina Barley

But if that means that controls become even more unlikely, I mean, I used to be a judge. To diminish the crimes, you do not need higher sanctions. You need more likelihood to be caught. That's the point that keeps people from doing the wrong things. And we don't have that. I don't see it coming.

James Kanter

Thank you. Mr. Itälä.

Ville Itälä

I think that I don't know exactly how this will go, but at least in general, the ethics standard has to be same everywhere. Because if somebody has much lower standards, it's always a reputational risk. And the citizens think always EU has one. They don't make difference if it's agency or Parliament or something else.

And like in the Qatar case, now the most of the MEPs are really hard working, high ethical standards.

But the reputation went from everyone with one scandal, done. And it takes years to get it back. And that's not fair. That's why we need to have this everywhere.

James Kanter

Thank you. Thank you.

Emily O’Reilly

Can I just say something, just in terms of resources and all of that. In my experience, if the EU politically generally wants something to happen, it can throw huge amounts of money in. And if it doesn't want something to happen, it starves it of money. It is as simple as that. And whether that's the transparency register, whether that's the resources that are put into the Commission in relation to dealing with access to documents requests, whether it's this body, you will know how serious it is by the amount of money it sends. And if people say it's a large amount of money relative to others, well, think about the amount of money it'll save in terms of the work that it does.

James Kanter

Yes, I mean, 600,000 is a very resonant figure when you think about the amount of cash that was in suitcases. Again, not very far from this building.

In fact, inside this building, if I remember correctly.

Emily O’Reilly

This is just a coincidence, okay? We were not making a point. My colleagues assured me that this was the only place in Brussels that was available today, you know. I naturally believe them.

James Kanter

The roots of the issue.

So, can I have a quick show of hands for any other questions in the room? Yes, question over there, please.

There's a mic. Please introduce yourself.

Nina Katzemich

I'm Nina Katzemich from LobbyControl in Germany, and I would shortly like to join the praise of TI to the ombudsman. Thank you very much for the important work, and thank you for the important discussion here.

We also see the point as many here that there's a huge problem of enforcement and oversight, and so I was really interested to hear from Mrs. Barley that the advisory committee has the right to ask for external investigating support, and I would like to ask two questions.

First one, did it ever use this? I never heard of that, but maybe, I don't know everything by far, so that would be interesting. And second question, how is the Parliament going to strengthen its own advisory body as long as, or let's say differently, there's not, the ethics committee we would have wished for is not coming, so I think every institution has to do it on its own, and the system of self-control, and we would like to know what concretely the Parliament is going to do to strengthen its own ethics body advisory committee.

James Kanter

Okay, you're in the hot seat again.

Katarina Barley

Yes, well, the provision talks about external support. It does not say explicitly external support for investigation, but what I meant is that everything that is being said about secret, secrecy in relation to freedom of mandate, apparently if you seek for external support, you have to, you know, lay down the case, so I said that as an example for that freedom of mandate does not limit you from searching for external support.

Oh, God, I'm going, yeah, okay. This advisory board, when Qatargate came up, we found that really close to nobody in the Parliament, I'm talking about MEPs, knew that this board had existed, merely existed.

So, at least that has changed, but the question what to do with it, of course, is in exactly the same range that I described earlier. There are those who want to make it a proper ethics body with the competencies I described, as long as we don't have an ethics body for all the institutions, and there are some who don't want it to do any more than it did up to now, and this goes along as it is in a Parliament, along your political conviction, and so I don't think that the outcome there, I don't see it coming. I don't see it coming to strengthen this body as a true ethics body with investigation powers.

I mean, it's not in the 14 points anyway, and we will be happy to get through these 14 points, and of course, there are a lot of MEPs who say these are first steps, and we want to go further afterwards, after this implementation, but it's definitely not every MEP who wants that.

James Kanter

Thank you very much.

Now, we're very nearly at the end, and I'd like to thank the panel, you and the audience, and of course the European Ombudsman for bringing us together to discuss this critical issue for the future of Europe, and if I could just invite the Ombudsman to close the conference for us.

Emily O’Reilly

Okay, thank you. I think in a way we were only getting started. I'm not sure whether the hall is free for the afternoon, but anyway, I want to thank the panellists. I know it can be all sorts of things they have to be mindful of in terms of what they say and can't say, but to the extent that they were open, I thank them for that.

I also thank James for asking some of the questions that we were too polite to ask, so thank you for that.

I'm not sure how much clarity has, you know, come from our discussion. We should know more, obviously, after Thursday, when the Parliament finishes doing its business, but I think we can all agree that, well, it's as complicated as you want it to be complicated, I guess, and the elephant in the room is definitely politics.

Of course it is. I mean, it always is, and generally, you know, the political group can split along predictable and traditional lines in relation to whether they love a strong ethics body or whether they’re rather lukewarm about it.

And I think that has to be acknowledged, but I think in all of these things it is really important not to fool the people, not to offer them something, and almost pretend that it's going to be a particular thing, and then politics comes in and dilutes it. That's not fair. It is not right, and I think when this was first talked about pre-Qatargate, there was going to be an independent ethics body, and I think what most people commonly understand would be that it would be independent. It would not be told what to do. It could work on its own initiative within its own mandate and powers. That it would have strong powers of investigation.

I mean, I think that's the strength of my office. It's not that people have to follow our recommendations. Thankfully, in general, they do, but our magic power is the power to investigate, and that's what we're trying to do. But our magic power is the power to investigate, to see whatever we need to see in order to put the report out, and then whatever happens, happens, and that's really important.

And then the third power is some form of sanctioning. I mean, the Haute Autorité as I understand it, doesn't impose sanctions itself, but it can refer to prosecutors or back to Parliament or whatever it does.

And I remember being very struck one time when my poor woman who attempted to improve my French was something, I think I was going to meet the Haute Autorité, and I asked her, are French people aware of the Haute Autorité ? And she said, oh yeah, very much.

And I said, and what would the impression be of it? That it's a strong body.

And I know there might be reluctance to model things on particular member states institutions, but it has the hallmarks. And I think what emerges, certainly in the short to medium term, is not going to have those hallmarks.

So I think the most that can be done, yes, I think it would be wonderful to have a body that does create those high standards and that we all agree to implement them, but that within the institutions, and particularly the most important ones, the Commission and the Parliament, we mustn't forget the council either, they're lurking there somewhere, you know, that their own ethics bodies are revamped, and it's not self-regulation, that they don't just sit there waiting for somebody to ask them to investigate something and then, you know, and so on.

So that's where it's really important. And people aren't stupid, and I think everybody has to think about what it's going to be like when they go before the electorate next May or June, whatever it is, and people ask a question.

And the extent to which they can bridge the gap between what was promised, back in 2019, and what is emerging now will determine how much trust citizens will put in this.

So a lot of work to be done, but I think I always believe in naming things, and I think the more that politicians in particular who are, and I do accept their bona fides in relation to this, tell us what's going on, tell us what the pressures are, then the more there can be citizen understanding and citizen support for what they're trying to do.

So I thank you all, and I think there's. Are we buying them coffee and sandwiches? We are. Okay. Generous service. Anyway, thank you all very much, and thank you to the panel. Thank you all. Thank you.

James Kanter

Thank you very much.