Corporate Accountability International, Corporate Europe Observatory (ALTER-EU) and LobbyControl (ALTER-EU)
The European Commission in mid-December decided to renew the mandate of the three members of the ad hoc ethical committee (Michel Petite, Rafael Garcia-Valdecasas and Terry Wynn) for a second three year period. The signatories of this letter would like to ask you to re-consider Mr. Petites’ re-appointment.
The ALTER-EU coalition has for several years campaigned to convince the Commission that the current rules are inadequate, but most of our demands have, until now, been ignored. We urge the Commission to use this opportunity to get its house in order.
ALTER-EU welcomes the initiative to draft a statement of public service principles for EU civil servants. We agree that such a set of principles could help “promote good administration and make maladministration less likely to occur.”
Instead of introducing a clear cooling-off period of several years, the Commission decided on a notification period of only 18 months [...]. The new Code mentions a ban on lobbying [...], but unfortunately this appears to be insufficient to avoid conflicts of interest. The Code only covers issues falling within the ex-Commissioner's own portfolio.