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In search of integrity andaccountability

By Simon Taylor

03.09.2009 / 12:43 CET

The European Transparency Initiative aimed toincrease financial accountability and ensure thegood conduct of officials.

Siim Kallas, the European commissioner for administration, has always set the increased supervisionof EU lobbying in a wider context: his EuropeanTransparency Initiative (ETI) launched in November 2005. The two main themes were to increase financialaccountability and ensure the good conduct andpersonal integrity of EU politicians and officials.He proposed that greater financial accountability wouldbe achieved by publishing data about who received EUmoney from the structural and cohesion funds, from theCommon Agricultural Policy and the Common FisheriesPolicy.Personal integrity would be improved by a new code of ethics for those working for all EU institutions, based onthe code of conduct for Commissioners, and includingMEPs. The integrity drive would also be extended tolobbyists who would be covered by a register.Kallas envisaged four areas for action: greater transparency for interest representatives through a newregister and code of conduct; greater transparencyabout the use of EU funds through publication of dataabout recipients; revision of the rules on access to EUdocuments; and ethical standards for public officials.

Use of EU funds

His greatest success has been on transparency over theuse of EU funds. The European Commission startedpublishing details on end-beneficiaries of programmesthat it directly manages in 2006. From 2008 member states were obliged to publish information aboutbeneficiaries of money from the structural funds.This June, member states were required to publishdetails about recipients of funds under the CommonAgricultural Policy. Only Germany failed to comply fullyby the deadline because data for the state of Bavariawas not released. This information was subsequentlymade public.Negotiations between the European Parliament and theCouncil of Ministers on a proposal to revise the rules onpublic access to documents held by EU institutions willcontinue this autumn.The least successful part of the ETI has been Kallas'sattempt to get MEPs and those working in other EUinstitutions than the Commission to agree on a commoncode of conduct.

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James - Thursday, 22 October 2009

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