Ethics board will stamp out corruption in Brussels, says European Commission Vice-President

Euronews

Vera Jourova, thanks very much for being on Euronews. Six months have passed since the biggest since one of the biggest corruption scandals of the history of the European Union. And according to the latest polls the majority of the Europeans, in fact, 60% of them are unhappy about how the EU is dealing with corruption. Are you surprised? 

Věra Jourová

It does not surprise me, but at the same time, it gives me another impulse to do something about that. And it doesn't matter where the scandal appeared. It was one of the institutions, probably the failure more of individual people than of the system. But what can the citizens think? Well-paid politicians, they have undeserved privileges. We don't know which standards and whether there is some ethics. You know, too many questions and too little answers. So that's why we came up with the anti-corruption package, which also covers EU institutions. And today I presented the first-ever European ethics body, which would cover all key EU institutions. 

Euronews

Let's talk about this new ethics body because it will set future standards for all of the EU institutions. But NGOs and, MEPs are demanding that the control should be not connected to the European Union but should be independent. Why is it not happening? 

Věra Jourová

Well, the ethics body is filling in the gap because just imagine each of the institutions have some internal structure that should do the job. The ethics body should not replace these institutional arrangements. There are people who should go after disciplinary breaches and should sanction these cases. So the ethics body will fill in the gaps, the roof above all the institutions, and work on the unified standards will then reflect in the work of