LOBBYING : SOME MEPS STILL AT RISK OF CONFLICT OF INTEREST.

The code of conduct for members of the European Parliament, in place since January 2012, is not preventing conflicts of interest, says Friends of the Earh. A study(1) released by the NGO on 18 July, together with Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), LobbyControl and SpinWatch, examined the declarations of financial interests of four MEPs and compared them with publicly available information.

Bendt Bendtsen (EPP, Denmark), Othmar Karas (EPP, Austria), Klaus-Heiner Lehne (EPP, Germany) and Paul Rubig (EPP, Austria) present a potential conflict of interest, according to the study.

Bendtsen is a member of the Advisory Board of Danske Bank, and in January 2012 he hosted a round table lunch on bank resolution and its "potential negative impact on trade, growth and SME activity". Questioned by the NGOs, he replied: "As far as conflicts of interest are concerned, common sense and constant awareness prevail".

Karas and Rubig receive staff support from WKO, the Austrian Chamber of Economics, and from the Institut fur Bildung und Innovation (a BusinessEurope member). But their declarations of financial interest do not reveal the exact nature of the arrangement. Does WKO make its own staff available to the MEP or does it pay the assistant's salary? The two MEPs told the non-governmental organisations that they "give young people participating in a rotating trainee programme run by these organisations the chance to work for a limited period of time in their offices to gain professional experience".

Lehne declared monthly income of more than 10,000 for his...