NEW EU STAFF REGULATIONS AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

New EU staff regulations applying to the 32,000 employees of the European Commission will enter into force on 1st January 2014.

According to the rules in both the old and new staff regulations, staff are bound by a two year notification period after they leave their EU job. During this time, they must inform their former institution of any new jobs (paid or not) that they plan to start, so they can be assessed for conflicts of interest. Their new occupation can then either be permitted in full, with certain restrictions (for example, on contacting former colleagues, working on dossiers previously responsible for, or for clients they previously had contact with) or in extreme cases, forbidden (for that two year period).

The new staff regulations introduce a one year waiting period for outgoing senior officials before they are allowed to begin a new job. This bans them from lobbying their former institutions for their business, clients or employers on matters for which they were responsible during the last three years in the service. Employees who agree not to engage in lobbying activities with their former co-workers are not subject to the waiting period.

Moreover, all EU institutions will be required - in accordance with data protection laws - to annually publish information on the implementation of the rules, including a list of cases assessed. This is a step forward from the old rules, which contained no cooling-off periods, only the two year notification period for all staff, which also remains in the new rules.  It also offers a promising precedent for transparency about revolving door cases.

Whilst the old staff regulations contain some general language about conflicts of interest, the new rules lay out a concrete procedure for screening new staff. The new text requires candidates to list any actual or potential conflict of interest they might have vis-a-vis the position they're applying for, on a specific form. The institution must then examine if this could impair their independence, and issue a "duly reasoned opinion."

This is good news in several ways. Firstly, it sets up a concrete procedure that must be followed by the institutions, and secondly, it will create a paper trail that watchdog groups can use (via access to documents requests) to check if the institutions are taking the rules seriously.