21/11/2025 Standing Committee
The PACE Standing Committee, meeting in Chisinau today, decided to amend the code of conduct for PACE members (contained in Appendix II to the Rules of Procedure) in order to have transparent and clear processes for identifying and managing conflicts of interest. The establishment of an “adequate conflicts-of-interest management system within PACE is vital for maintaining public trust in Europe’s democratic institutions and ensuring the credibility of its actions,” the parliamentarians emphasised.
Adopting unanimously a resolution based on the report by Sergiy Vlasenko (Ukraine, EPP/CD), PACE recommended: clarifying what is a “conflict of interest”; providing “clear guidance for identifying potential, perceived or actual conflicts of interest” and for suggesting ways of managing them; and further work to “simplify the language of the code of conduct”.
Furthermore, the adopted text underlines that it would be useful to designate a person whose confidential advice members could seek for identifying and managing conflicts of interest. In this regard, the parliamentarians underlined that the Council of Europe Ethics Officer had the relevant expertise and independence for this role.