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Legal and Ethical Rules in EU Decision-Making: “Soft Law” for Targets and Actors of Lobbying

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Lobbying in the European Union

Abstract

While lobbying can play an important role for democracy, it needs to find its limitations both in legal and ethical provisions. At EU level, we find such provisions mainly in Codes of Conduct, a form of soft law. Besides rules on transparency, conflict of interests, and the revolving doors phenomenon, these documents refer to ethical principles mainly in an implicit way, by using terms such as “integrity,” “diligence,” “honesty,” “accountability,” etc. Those provisions mainly apply for the targets of lobbying, while we find similar, however less, provisions concerning actors of lobbying. Recent changes adopted by Parliament and Council can be seen as important steps toward more ethical lobbying, an important step toward regaining European citizen’s trust.

This contribution is based on the Master thesis of Julian Grad entitled “Transparency and Lobbying—Money meets law and ethics” (June 2016) and has been further developed and updated (as of December 2016) by the two authors. This contribution contains parts of interviews which are cited in the Master thesis of Julian Grad (available at MCI Management Center Innsbruck).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Art. 11 TEU (Treaty on European Union) is about participatory democracy, Art. 10 TEU about representative democracy, and Art. 9 TEU on democratic equality. Art. 11 TEU can be seen as a “constitutional” basis of lobbying; Huber (2012, 105).

  2. 2.

    The areas of law and ethics are closely related, whereas the former often only expresses the minimum level of one’s expectations of right and wrong, leaving it to ethics to fill the void (McWay 2015, 99).

  3. 3.

    “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the member states in a society in which pluralism, nondiscrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity, and equality between women and men prevail.”

  4. 4.

    This comprises legal certainty, prohibition of arbitrariness of the executive powers, independent and impartial courts, effective judicial review including respect for fundamental rights, and equality before the law.

  5. 5.

    Acc. to Williams (2010, 256) principles possess a deontological character, whereas values (cf. Art. 2 TEU) are teleological.

  6. 6.

    The CoEU has not got its own CoC nor has the European Council. Although the recent Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) CoC (OJ 2016 C 483, p. 1) would be of interest for our research field, it will be not further elaborated due to the fact that the CJEU is not a target of lobbying.

  7. 7.

    European Centre for Parliamentary Research and Documentation

  8. 8.

    In the following, the abbreviations used in this table will be used when referring to these documents.

  9. 9.

    Also the other institutions mentioned in this provision can be of relevance; however, we will concentrate on the three main EU institutions in the field of the EU decision-making process.

  10. 10.

    On informal trilogues and transparency, see Stöbener de Mora, P. S. (2016, 721).

  11. 11.

    According to a survey from 2012, 73% of EU citizens (70% according to a 2014 study [EC 2014b, 40]) believe that there is a corruption within EU institutions, with highest number in Austria (87%), indicating a low level of trust (EC 2012, 26–28).

  12. 12.

    Transparency has already been mentioned as being part of the rule of law (“a transparent, accountable, democratic, and pluralistic legislative procedure”), one of the EU’s values.

  13. 13.

    Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

  14. 14.

    The importance of transparency has also been stressed several times in the Brexit negotiations.

  15. 15.

    Art. 2 para. 1 EP Statute also mentions that MEPs shall be “free and independent.”

  16. 16.

    Financial disinterest is further clarified in Art. 2 lit. b (no financial benefits), Art. 4 (declaration of financial interests), and Art. 5 (gifts or similar benefits) EP CoC.

  17. 17.

    Integrity can have two different meanings, first of all determining ethical behavior and second referring to a notion of “the whole.” It is quite obvious that in this context, the first meaning applies and that it overlaps with honesty (see also pt. 2.6.2 EC Anti-Fraud, where reference is made to ethics and integrity).

  18. 18.

    The EC CoC, the EC GAB, and the Staff Reg also emphasize independence as such. The Staff Reg also requires the EU officials to act objectively and impartially, while the EC CoC also refers to good faith and trust and requires its members to establish good working relations with their departments based on loyalty, trust, and transparency.

  19. 19.

    See also Art. 286 para. 4 TFEU with regard to the Court of Auditors, and Art. 4 para. 3 Prot. No. 3 TEU TFEU (Statute CJEU)

  20. 20.

    In terms of legal principles, the EC GAB also mention lawfulness, nondiscrimination and equal treatment, proportionality, and consistency.

  21. 21.

    Code of Good Administrative Behavior for staff of the European Commission in their relations with the public

  22. 22.

    Also Art. 41 para. 1 CFR (right to good administration) mentions impartiality and fairness.

  23. 23.

    Art. 57 para. 2 Fin Reg, e.g., refers to “reasons involving family, emotional life, political or national affinity, economic interest, or any other shared interest with a recipient”; see also Art. 32 Fin ImReg.

  24. 24.

    Several documents emphasize the loyalty toward the institutions: EC CoC (loyalty, general interest of the EU, dignity, and duties of the office), Art. 11 para. 1 Staff Reg (loyalty to the EU), Art. 1 EP CoC (“accountability and respect for Parliament’s reputation”).

  25. 25.

    Provisions on CoI can also be found in the Staff Reg (Art. 11, 11a, 16 et passim), the Fin Reg (Art. 57 et passim), as well as the Fin ImReg (Art. 32 et passim) and the EC GAB.

  26. 26.

    A public official is actually in a position to be influenced by his private interests.

  27. 27.

    There is a personal interest which might influence the public official.

  28. 28.

    This arises, when there are private-capacity interests which may influence the public official in the future.

  29. 29.

    Also Art. 13 Staff Reg provides rules concerning officials’ spouses.

  30. 30.

    That is, both as a selection criteria for individual Commissioners (“whose independence is beyond doubt”) and as a principle for the whole EC when carrying out its tasks (Art. 17 para. 3 TEU). In addition, Art. 245 para. 1 TFEU stipulates the MS’s obligation to respect the Commissioners independence.

  31. 31.

    See also pt. 1.1 EC CoC on honorary unpaid posts, which “shall under no circumstances involve any risk of a conflict of interest.” Also Art. 12b Staff Reg provides rules for “outside activities” of officials.

  32. 32.

    See also Art. 2 lit. b EP CoC on bribery and corruption.

  33. 33.

    A recent travel of Commissioner Oettinger caused a controversy (“Oettigate”) over the definition of gifts and whether the EC CoC only applies within the ambit of the portfolio of the relevant Commissioner (King 2016).

  34. 34.

    For recent statistics, see also Transparency International EU 2017.

  35. 35.

    ALTER-EU recommends 3 years.

  36. 36.

    Case CoEU v Bangemann, C-290/99 has been removed from the register. Based on case EC v Cresson, C-432/04, para. 70, we at least know that the term obligations arising from a Commissioner’s office has to be interpreted in a broad sense; nevertheless, a “breach of a certain degree of gravity is required” (para. 72).

  37. 37.

    On the case of former Commissioner Kroes who was reprimanded by the EC on Dec. 21 2016, see Ariès (2016b).

  38. 38.

    The current EC CoC has already extended the notification obligation of post term-of-office activities from 12 to 18 months (p. 4).

  39. 39.

    Europe may benefit as well from taking a closer look to the USA, which trains all new employees in the federal government on ethical rules and provides all senior officials with annual training on ethical principles, standards, and possible CoI; Salkin (1998, 9).

  40. 40.

    For several complaints concerning the EC’s handling of post-mandate activities of former Commissioners and of former EC President Barroso, as well as AHEC’s role in this regard, see O’Reilly 2017.

  41. 41.

    Acc. to the new EP RoP, it has also been tasked with regard to outdated or incorrect declarations of financial interests of MEPs (Art. 4 para. 5 EP CoC).

  42. 42.

    Updated by the new EP RoP.

  43. 43.

    OLAF’s mission is to strengthen citizens’ trust in the EU institutions and to develop EU policies to counter-fraud OLAF (2016, 3).

  44. 44.

    OJ 2016 L 140, p. 21.

  45. 45.

    See also Art. 24 leg. cit. on synergies between the register of expert groups and the TR.

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    Grad, J., Frischhut, M. (2019). Legal and Ethical Rules in EU Decision-Making: “Soft Law” for Targets and Actors of Lobbying. In: Dialer, D., Richter, M. (eds) Lobbying in the European Union. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98800-9_22

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