Summary
The Common Approach endorsed by the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission in July 2012 (as attached to the Joint Statement on EU decentralised agencies signed by these three institutions, see annex 1) calls for the development and application in all EU decentralised agencies of a coherent policy on preventing and managing conflicts of interest concerning the members of the Management Board, whether or not they sit in a personal capacity, the members of the Scientific Committee and the agencies' Directors (see statements nr 11, 18 and 20 of the Common Approach in annex 2).
For this purpose and in line with the aforementioned Common Approach, the Commission adopted 'Guidelines on the prevention and management of conflicts of interest in EU decentralised agencies' on 10 December 2013 (see annex 3). These Guidelines aim at supporting agencies, by providing a set of principles and tools that they should consider in order to develop their own conflict-of-interest policy, with due consideration given to the specific context in which each one of them operates, as well as their degree of exposure to the risk of conflict of interest.
In the preparation of these Guidelines, the European Commission conducted an extensive mapping exercise of existing rules and practices in all agencies, to identify the current state of play, as well as good practices. The Commission also took into account the main recommendations addressed to agencies in this area by the European Parliament (namely in the framework of the discharge process), the European Court of Auditors (in its Special Report nr. 15/2012 on 'Management of conflict of interest in EU selected agencies'), the EU Ombudsman (on the occasion of his visits to several agencies, as part of a programme launched in May 2011) and the Commission's Internal Audit Service, in its capacity as internal auditor also of the agencies.
On this basis the document below presents the EMCDDA policy for the prevention and management of conflicts of interest.
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