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Anti-fraud chief vows to improve EU's transparency
The European Commission plans to tighten controls on the way member states spend European Union money and impose stricter rules for lobbyists as part of a drive to increase transparency and trust in the 25-nation bloc. Anti-Fraud Commissioner Siim Kallas said on Thursday the package, which the EU executive will debate next week, also included plans to improve standards of conduct for EU officials. The proposal comes as Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso is under fire from some European parliamentarians for accepting a holiday on a Greek billionaire's yacht. The "transparency initiative" is part of an effort by the Commission, appointed late last year, to bring the EU closer to citizens, who often regard its institutions as distant, bureaucratic and sometimes corrupt. "It is a package of steps to increase the trust of citizens," Kallas told a news briefing. One idea is to oblige member states to make public details of firms, organisations and individuals receiving EU farm and regional aid to ensure it is not awarded or spent improperly. "So far, no member states objected," he said, adding that although fraudulent spending of EU funds did not appear to be a serious problem "we must prevent the misuse of EU money as it compromises the EU and member states". "There is sometimes ... a contradiction here between transparency and data protection. There must be a balance between them," he said. TIGHTER REIN ON LOBBYISTS? EU farm and regional aid, which accounts for more than three-quarters of the bloc's 106 billion euro annual budget, is mostly allocated and supervised by only member states. The Commission is also considering tighter regulations for for lobbyists and non-governmental organisations, whose operations now are generally undefined and unpoliced. Kallas said the Commission was meeting representatives of the groups to work out a voluntary code of conduct that would allow the EU to avoid imposing legal constrictions on the sector, such as those in the United States. There are about 15,000 lobbyists in Brussels, who try to influence major economic laws, but apart from the European Parliament no EU institution has a register of them. "My attitude here is positive, I do not to want to go into heavyweight legislation ... But a legislative proposal is not excluded," Kallas said. The Commission will also have to decide what to do with non-governmental organisations, which receive funds from the EU, while their main task is to lobby the EU. Kallas said the Commission would also consider appointing a "high level group of advisors" that would evaluate ways of improving various codes of conduct for EU officials to ward off any suspicion of fraud and conflict of interest. |
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