Stronger ethics regulation

ALTER-EU considers that many of the EU institutions require stronger ethics rules to prevent conflicts of interest and to ensure the highest standards of public office. We concentrate our efforts on the Commission and the Parliament.

For the European Commission, ALTER-EU demands major changes to the Code of Conduct for Commissioners including:

• Strong definitions of 'lobbying' and conflicts of interest'

• Far tougher revolving door rules

• More detailed financial interest disclosure

• Greater transparency about the enforcement of the code

• The introduction of sanctions for when the rules are breached

• A fully independent ethics committee to monitor and enforce the code

For the European Parliament, ALTER-EU demands a far tougher Code of Conduct for MEPs which includes the following:

• Ban MEPs from advising or providing other lobby services to companies influencing the European Parliament

• Ensure that the Code of Conduct includes measures to tackle and prevent possible conflicts of interests when they occur

• Better define a conflict of interest

• Tighten disclosure requirements for outside financial interests

• Reform and extend the mandate of the advisory committee

• Augment the existing remedies and/ or sanctions and ensure these are being applied when conflicts of interest occur

• Prevent attempts of policy capture of individual members in their duties

• Acknowledge that the risks of MEPs going through the revolving door when leaving office are real

• Tighten guidelines in relation to gifts and hospitality funded by third parties

• Address the lack of transparency rules for European Parliament cross-party groups

You can read the detail of our proposed MEP Code of Conduct reforms here.

You can read our guide to ethics for MEPs here.