open letters

On 8 May, the Budget Committee will vote on the European Commission's request to lift the reserve of two million Euros for meetings for expert groups. (Transfer of Appropriations No DEC 05/2012) The European Commission is requesting that this reserve is lifted without any of the conditions set by the European Parliament being fulfilled [...].

The Staff Regulations contain the ethics rules which govern 55,000 or more officials who work across the EU institutions. ALTER-EU considers that the current process to reform the Staff Regulations provides an opportunity to improve these ethics rules, especially those that relate to conflicts of interest during and after EU staff work for the EU.

The importance of effective implementation of the code, including clear definitions, became evident last week when a news medium reported that the CEO of the Finnish Chamber of Commerce intended to take the seat as MEP from March 1st, without giving up the job as chair of the lobby group.

Following correspondence with Dr Lönngren our press statement of 19 Dec 2011 has been updated. Evidence suggests Dr Lönngren’s post employment activities with private pharmaceutical industry were arranged whilst being employed by EMA. His consultancy, Pharma Executive Consulting Ltd, was incorporated 2 months before he left EMA.