The corruption scandal around the EU-Parliament forced its President to start the debate about transparency and rules of behaviour in her institution in full scope. The result was a 14-points plan against influence and corruption.
How the personnel and the members of the European Parliament ( EP ) should behave, is written in the Rules of Procedure of the EP. So also the recommendation, according to which the representatives should only disclose the gatherings with lobbyists in the course of their political work and not- as often reported wrongly- that they must disclose them already now. Additionally they should meet only those lobbyists , who have been previously registered in the publicly visible transparent register. Regarding the acceptance of presents as per customs of courtesy the representatives are not allowed to take any gifts, which value might exceed the amount of about 150 Euros. Actually are exempt the payments of travel-, accomodation- and residence costs from the third party , if the representatives of the EP are performing meanwhile their parliamentary duties.
As these and further recommendations apparently could not stop the currupt actions of some representatives, the President of the EU-Parliament Roberta Metsola two weeks ago presented a 14-points plan against corruption and influence. The plan includes among other things the regulation that all the planned meetings with third party in connection with political decisions – opposite to the actual rule- must be held in public. Additionally the former representatives , who received up till now permanently valid entry passes, would have to apply for daily accreditations.