European Diary:Public accountability was the dominant theme in Strasbourg last week when MEPs debated the latest negotiations on the EU reform treaty.
Under the current draft of the treaty being worked on by EU officials, personal data such as airline passenger records can be passed by member states to third countries without the scrutiny of either the European Parliament or the European Court of Justice (ECJ). This provision, which gives the EU council sole responsibility for protecting European citizens' privacy, is prompting concern among MEPs.
"We mustn't give the impression that Europe is being used [ with] questions of protection of data disappearing into bureaucratic processes rather than being something we uphold in a democratic European Union," said German MEP Elmar Brok, who is one of three MEPs attending the Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC) that is finalising the treaty.
MEPs are pressing member states to have the transfer of data placed under the scrutiny of the parliament and the ECJ to boost the democratic accountability of the Union. But states are wary of giving the parliament a say on matters in the field of foreign and security policy.
This type of inter-institutional wrangling between MEPs, the council and the commission over power has been a key dynamic in Brussels since the parliament became a directly-elected body in 1979. For the past 30 years MEPs have successfully extended their oversight role and become a credible public watchdog over the other EU institutions.
In recent years the parliament has demonstrated its ability to help strengthen crucial EU directives such as Reach, which requires chemical companies to register and test up 30,000 substances to protect human heath. And while the other two traditionally more powerful EU institutions have refused to investigate EU states' complicity in CIA rendition flights, MEPs have taken up the cudgel in defence of European values.
"There used to be a cowboy activism at the parliament on human rights issues without any serious scrutiny of the other institutions. But that has changed in the last few years," says Dick Oosting, director of Amnesty's EU office. "However, the parliament still doesn't have enough bite when it comes to scrutinising security matters."
The proposed reform treaty is expected to go some way towards boosting the oversight powers of the parliament. For example the co-decision procedure, which gives MEPs equal lawmaking powers to the Council of Ministers, will be extended to the field of judicial and police co-operation for the first time. However, as mentioned earlier, the proposed new treaty will exclude foreign and security matters from parliamentary scrutiny unless Mr Brok persuades EU states to compromise.
Yet parliament's campaign to boost its role as the EU's public watchdog hit an unexpected pothole on the final day of the Strasbourg plenary when the EU Ombudsman turned the spotlight on MEPs' lack of transparency.
P Nikiforos Diamandouros, the former Greek professor who investigates complaints from the public about the EU institutions, issued a ruling that MEPs should for the first time disclose their expenses. "MEPs have to be aware of the public interest in their use of public funds," he wrote in a ruling following a complaint from a Maltese journalist.
The judgment, although not binding, will increase the pressure on parliament to reform the opaque system governing MEPs' expenses, which cost more than €136 million in 2006. Unlike TDs working in the Dáil, MEPs do not have to disclose the value of their own annual expenses, which are paid out of the EU budget, or where they are spent.
The parliament argues that disclosing these details would breach rules on "the protection of personal data". It also argues that parliament's own budgetary control committee monitors the payments effectively.
However, on this point, Nils Lungren, vice-chairman of the budgetary control committee, told The Irish Times he doesn't agree with the stance of the parliament's bureau, which is composed of senior MEPs.
"There is quite a lot of money that is not spent correctly. It may not be illegal but there are questions over the morality of certain practices relating to travel expenses and paying relatives or friends out of their MEP allowances," says Mr Lungren, who is lobbying for the MEPs' expenses system to be made more transparent.
"I think if the parliament does not follow the ruling of the Ombudsman then it would be very damaging to the credibility of the parliament. We would lose public trust." Last month's conviction of British MEP Ashley Mote on 21 counts of deception, related to state benefits he received in Britain between 1996 and 2002, focused unwelcome public attention on MEPs' finances. Mr Mote faces nine months in prison in Britain while the parliament must again try to repair its "gravy train" image in the British media.
Perhaps now is the time for its MEPs to begin a new campaign to open up their own expenses to public scrutiny. After all, if a public watchdog is to be effective it must be beyond reproach.