European Parliament to Further Scrutinise 23 EU Commissioners for Conflicts of Interest and Cites Dutch Declaration as ‘Example’

The European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs will conduct an additional vetting of 23 of the 26 candidates for commissioners in the future European Commission for possible conflicts of interest, Politico reports.

After a three-hour meeting, the European Parliament's committee conducted the first stage of the vetting process for the candidates for European Commissioners - their financial declarations, which should show that they have no conflict of interest.

By a simple majority vote, the committee decided to send 23 out of 26 candidates additional questions.

Candidates are required to disclose any assets worth more than €10,000 in their declarations, and the European Parliament considers it ‘hardly plausible’ that only a few of them filled in the relevant fields.

The checks showed no conflict of interest for only three candidates - Piotr Serafin of Poland, Oliver Varghese of Hungary, and Wopke Hoekstra of the Netherlands, whose declaration was called ‘an example to follow’.

Additional questions about the origin of the declared money will be asked of some of the candidates, including the Greek Apostolos Tsitsikostas, the Slovenian Marta Kos and the Italian Raffaella Fitto.

MEPs offer Croatian Dubravka Suica to sell his shares in the shipping company Atlantska Plovidba worth 3,684 euros and in Hrvatski Telecom worth 2,029 euros. 

Estonian Kaja Kallas will be asked about her husband's ownership of shares in a company linked to Russia.

The European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs is expected to complete the investigation by 18 October. The next stage will be an interview with the relevant parliamentary committees, which will take place from 4 to 12 November.