Final changes made to draft code of conduct

Date: 31/10/1996

MEPs are putting the finishing touches to the European Parliament's first official set of rules for outside lobbyists.

British Socialist MEP Glyn Ford aims to present his draft code of conduct to his colleagues on the Parliament's rules committee towards the end of November, in the hope that the new standards can be applied from early in the New Year.

The Parliament agreed before the summer recess to establish a register which regular lobbyists and consultants would have to sign in exchange for a pass guaranteeing them access to designated areas of the institution's premises.

But to prevent deep differences between MEPs leading to further delays in introducing the new system, the Parliament decided in July to postpone the drafting of the detail of the code of conduct until later in the year.

Ford is confident that his proposals will be accepted by the rules committee next month, since they are designed to complement the tighter standards already agreed to govern MEPs' own outside financial interests.

“I really see it as dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's on what we have already agreed,” he said this week.

Under the Ford proposals, lobbyists would have to agree not to give gifts to MEPs, nor give outside work to parliamentary assistants without the knowledge and agreement of members.

The code would also lay down a limited period after officials had left the Parliament during which they could not be recruited by outside consultancies.

Ford is keen to stop lobby-ists cold-calling MEPs and is arguing that passes should be withdrawn for regular breaches of the code of conduct.

While the Parliament has been struggling for many years to reach an agreement on a definitive set of rules, a small group of public affairs consultancies went ahead in September 1994 and produced its own 12-point voluntary code of conduct for lobbyists dealing with the EU institutions.

This set out basic ground rules, which included the need for lobbyists to declare whom they represented and stipulated that they should “neither directly nor indirectly offer nor give any financial inducement to any EU official”.

Over the past two years, the number of signatories has climbed to 26 and the code has been regularly reviewed.

“Our next annual meeting is on 8 November, when public affairs practitioners who have signed the code of conduct and others with an interest in it will discuss its current status and what is happening in the institutions and how we should respond,” explained the group's acting coordinator, Maria Laptev, of Charles Barker.