Public trust in the EU institutions is historic low, and recent scandals have called into question EU integrity. In a report from April Transparency International (TI) presents status and tries to separate myth from reality. It is alarming news focusing the dark rooms of the EU.
The report finds that there is a good foundation in the EU system to support integrity and ethics; a foundation provided by general policies, rules and practices adopted to prevent fraud and corruption. However, due to loopholes and poor implementation of rules on ethics, transparency and control, corruption risks exist at EU level.
The most urgent of the corruption risks include opacity in EU law-making and in EU-lobbying, poorly managed conflicts of interest, weak protection of EU whistle-blowers, and weak sanctions for corrupt companies.
The report notes the trend of EU institutions to negotiate laws behind closed doors, the so-called trialogue meetings. Here small groups of representatives from Commission, Council and Parliament negotiates.TI calculated that more than 1500 trialogue meetings were held during last term of the EP, and there is no public record of them or of their content.
Similarly, no mandatory rules on lobbying apply at the EU level, and the public remains largely in the dark about how outside interests are influencing EU legislation and those in power.
To seal loopholes and strengthen the implementation of rules on ethics, TI put forward key recommendations to promote a policy of `transparency by default` in EU decision-making, manage effectively conflicts of interests of senior EU decision-makers, put in place effective internal whistle-blowing procedures, improve the EUs debarment system and establish an independent European public prosecutor with broad anti-corruption powers.
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