Pressure grows for interest rules

Date: 11/04/1996

By Rory Watson

MEPs are preparing to resume the search for new rules on their outside interests and the behaviour of lobbyists, almost three months after embarrassingly blocking earlier proposals to put their own house in order.

In a bid to restore the European Parliament's credibility, President Klaus Hänsch is keen to see the new standards agreed before the summer recess.

Fresh proposals to lay down, for the first time, a clear code of behaviour for lobbyists and clarify permissible conduct for parliamentarians will be considered by the Parliament's rules committee later this month.

The twin initiatives, originally drafted by French Liberal MEP Thomas Nordmann and British Socialist member Glyn Ford, continue to generate much heated debate. There were bitter recriminations when the Parliament, reflecting varying national traditions, unexpectedly failed to accept the detailed schemes unanimously agreed by the rules committee at its January plenary.

“We cannot tolerate a second failure. We must get something through and take account of differing national interests. At a very minimum, we must ensure MEPs do at least what national deputies do,” said a senior parliamentary official.

After widespread criticism that leaders of the Parliament's political groups had failed to give their full support to the measures in January, Hänsch created an all-party working group of senior MEPs. Under the chairmanship of former Socialist group leader Jean-Pierre Cot, it sought to establish a minimum consensus for the new rules.

The treatment of gifts to, or services for, parliamentarians proved to be a major obstacle in January. The original suggestion that they should be declared if they totalled more than 1,000 ecu in any one year came under fierce attack from French members in particular. A new law applicable to all elected representatives in France specifically forbids the acceptance of any gifts.

When the Parliament's rules committee meets on 22 April, it will consider Cot's suggestion that MEPs should follow French practice and impose an outright ban on gifts. Gijs de Vries, the Liberal group leader, is one of those taking a tough line.

“I am appalled at the idea that gifts are okay up to a certain level. They should be banned and that should apply equally to all MEPs. There is no functional argument why any politician should receive gifts,” he maintains.

Cot's group also tried to tread a fine line between conflicting national practices on the declaration by MEPs of all immovable and movable assets such as property. The principle is alien to the Dutch, but is an annual requirement for Greek members. The rules committee is being asked to back a system under which Euro MPs would follow national practice on the declaration of such assets.

“This would leave some MEPs doing a lot and others hardly anything at all, but there seems no other way round it. The general view appears to be that something is better than nothing and I would expect the new Ford and Nordmann reports to be voted on by the plenary in June or July,” said one MEP.

But Ford is determined that these should not be just the lowest common denominator. His suggestions that lobbyists should register and be issued with passes were accepted by MEPs in January before they ran into deadlock over the question of declaring gifts and services.

“There is no point in changing the rules if that does not achieve anything. I will accept as a foundation what was agreed in January, but only as a foundation, not as a first floor or a second floor,” he said.

MEPs still need to agree a code of conduct for lobbyists and outside consultants.

Separate issues such as the status and responsibilities of assistants and the behaviour of parliamentary intergroups may well be left to be sorted out at a future date.

Irish Liberal MEP Pat Cox, who has taken a keen interest in the search for ways of tightening existing measures, believes the debate over introducing greater transparency into the Parliament's activities reflects a more basic problem.

“The exercise has confirmed in my own mind the need to look seriously at a common statute for Euro MPs,” he said.

Such a statute would set equal pay and conditions for all MEPs. But member states are unlikely to agree to such a move because of the differences it would create between the salaries of MPs and MEPs from the same country.