Over the past weeks, the Socialists and Democrats have been working to propose concrete reforms to enhance transparency and accountability in the European Parliament. Following on its decision on December 20, 2022 to launch an S&D Internal Inquiry, the Group is at the same time completing the work on the mandate of this inquiry.

This morning at the Conference of Presidents – which gathers the president of the European Parliament all the political groups leaders – S&D chair Iratxe García presented a first set of proposals that will be part of its plan to promote, strengthen, prevent and combat corruption and interference from third countries and lobbies in the European Parliament.

Iratxe García, S&D Group leader, said:

“Our Group has zero tolerance for corruption and is fully committed to the fight against both corruption and foreign interference. Over the last days we have been analysing what can be improved in terms of transparency and ethics, as well as the code of conduct. Some existing rules in the Parliament must be strengthened, but we also need new measures and new bodies.

"This morning at the Conference of Presidents we had a very good discussion. Our Group will propose a set of measures to prevent and combat corruption and foreign corruptive interference in our institution. As the criminal investigation on the so-called Qatargate continues with the full collaboration of the S&Ds, we are totally determined to work with the rest of the groups to rebuild citizens' trust and repair the damage done by a few to the credibility of the institution by criminal acts."

Among the measures are:

• To set up an Ethics Body for the EU institutions before the end of the legislature. The Commission committed to it in 2019 and the European Parliament reminded the Commission of this obligation with a resolution in 2021. It is time to act.
• To ensure that all members of  the European Parliament, parliamentary assistants, and staff members only meet with third party representatives registered on the EU Transparency Register and make all scheduled meetings with third parties public. Additionally, all funding streams to and from third parties, including from third countries, to organisations listed on the EU Transparency Registry must be verified regularly.
• To revoke all privileges of former MEPs linked to the secretariat support.
• To ban all representatives of Qatar from entry into the European Parliament for the duration of the judicial investigation.
• To strengthen protection of whistleblowers.
• To review the Member’s Statute, to ensure more transparency in their declaration of interests, as well as on their participation on various boards in other activities
• To make the ‘legislative footprint’ mandatory for all Members.
• To oblige MEPs to provide more detailed and thorough information on their activities which will be made public.