The Committee on Constitutional Affairs adopted the report by Richard Corbett (S&D, UK) on amendments to Parliament’s Rules of Procedure affecting Chapters 1 and 4 of Title I; Chapter 3 of Title V; Chapters 4 and 5 of Title VII; Chapter 1 of Title VIII; Title XII; Title XIV and Annex II.
Members proposed that the European Parliament should made the following amendments to its Rules of Procedure as follows:
Standards of conduct (Rule 11)
The changes made to the Rules provide that Members shall respect Parliament’s dignity and shall not harm its reputation. They shall not:
- compromise the smooth conduct of parliamentary business and shall not compromise the maintenance of security and order on Parliament’s premises or the functioning of its equipment;
- not disrupt the good order of the Chamber and shall refrain from improper behaviour. They shall not display banners;
- not resort to offensive language in parliamentary debates in the Chamber (for example defamation, hate speech or inciting discrimination), as well as from any type of psychological or sexual harassment.
A serious breach of these rules by a Member may entail possible sanctions.
Transparency (Rule 223a)
Parliament shall lay down rules governing the transparency of its Members' financial interests in the form of a Code of Conduct which shall be adopted by a majority of its component Members. Members should adopt the systematic practice of only meeting interest representatives that have registered in the Transparency Register established by means of the Agreement between the European Parliament and the European Commission on the transparency register.
Members should publish online all scheduled meetings with interest representatives falling under the scope of the Transparency register. Rapporteurs, shadow rapporteurs and committee chairs shall, for each report, publish online all scheduled meetings with interest representatives falling under the scope of the Transparency register.
Parliament’s website will have to be technically adapted in order to allow the Members to publish public information on their use of the General Expenditure Allowance.
Parliamentary questions
The proposed revision also includes measures relating to parliamentary questions, in particular interpellations to the Council and the European Commission, committee consultations on confidential information, rules of standing committees and parliamentary intergroups.
As regards the questions for written answers (Rule 130), each Member, political group or committee may submit a maximum of twenty questions over a rolling period of three months. As a general rule, the questions shall be answered by the addressee within six weeks of being forwarded to it. However, any Member, political group or committee may every month designate one of its questions as a “priority question” to be answered by the addressee within three weeks of being forwarded to it.
European political parties and foundations (Rule 11a)
Members defined the conditions according to which a group of at least 50 citizens can request that the European Parliament asks the Authority for European political parties and Foundations to verify whether a given European political party or foundation fulfils these requirements.
Members proposed that the amendments shall enter into force on the first day of the next part-session with the exception of the amendments of the Code of appropriate behaviour for Members of the European Parliament in exercising their duties as well as the amendments to Rules 196 (setting-up of standing committees) and 204 (Committee bureaux), which shall enter into force at the opening of the first part-session following the next elections to the European Parliament due to be held in 2019.