BRUSSELS — When it comes to fielding accusations of conflicts of interest, Petra Kammerevert is a repeat offender.
The German member of the European Parliament is leading her political group’s negotiations on a landmark media law, even as she receives remuneration such as attendance fees, monthly expense allowances and per diems from the regional German public broadcaster Westdeutsche Rundfunk Köln (WDR).
It’s the second time the European lawmaker, who belongs to Germany’s Social Democratic Party, has been singled out by her colleagues and transparency activists for regulating an industry from which she receives payments.
In 2016, Kammervert, who says she’s doing nothing wrong, came under scrutiny for her WDR work when she served as co-rapporteur on legislation seeking to introduce levies and cultural quotas on platforms like Netflix.
“That behavior has been normalized — and that’s the problem,” said Nicholas Aiossa, the head of policy and advocacy for Transparency International. “It’s not appropriate for her to be negotiating on behalf of the Socialists and Democrats group, with these side financial interests at play, as a lead negotiator for this legislative file.”
Kammerevert receives from €1,000 to €5,000 per month for being a member of the WDR broadcasting council, a regulatory body charged with representing the public interest, according to her voluntary financial declaration for the European Parliament.
She’s also serving as the main negotiator in the culture committee for the Socialists and Democrats parliamentary grouping in discussions on the European Media Freedom Act, legislation intended to protect media pluralism and independence that has been opposed in Germany, including by WDR. Fears have centered around Brussels overstepping its competencies to interfere in media and culture, which is typically overseen at the national level.
Kammerevert pushed back against criticism, saying her job on the broadcasting council of a German public media had been misrepresented. In Germany, it is typical for politicians to sit on such councils.
“I am not a supervisory board member in a private company. This seems to be permanently confused by critics,” she said in a written response. “The task of broadcasting councils is to monitor whether a public broadcaster is fulfilling the programming mandate assigned to it by law. In exercising this control function, I don’t give a damn about the interests of WDR and its management.”
WDR is a public broadcaster in Germany’s western North Rhine-Westphalia region. It belongs to a consortium of regional broadcasters comprising Germany’s ARD, one of the world’s largest public broadcaster organizations, which has also lobbied German members of European Parliament on the European Media Freedom Act in Brussels, according to a Transparency International tool collating public records of meetings. (Axel Springer, POLITICO’s owner, has also opposed the legislation.)
The WDR broadcasting council has called upon EU legislators to water down the European Media Freedom Act over fears that it could weaken Germany’s media system through setting broad EU-wide rules. Kammerevert and other German MEPs, including Sabine Verheyen of the European People’s Party who previously sat on the WDR council, have pushed to downgrade it from a stringent regulation to a more flexible directive. They both sit on the culture committee, which is responsible for the file.
While MEPs are allowed to have second (or third, or fourth, or more) jobs, the Qatargate corruption scandal has thrown new light on the common practice, especially in cases where the jobs overlap with the lawmaker’s legislative responsibilities.
Public pressure is growing for EU parliamentarians to go beyond just declaring their extra jobs and meetings. Other lawmakers have declared their moonlighting gigs as lawyers and advising companies on laws they have worked on. In an attempt to reform the Parliament, with European elections to take place in one year, President Roberta Metsola has pledged to beef up transparency and integrity rules.
Asked why the Socialists and Democrats had appointed Kammerevert despite previous scrutiny over a similar potential conflict of interest, the president of S&D group Iratxe García Pérez — who was given nearly two days to reply — did not respond to POLITICO.
“It’s really a responsibility of any individual member, and also the groups as such, to prevent any possible conflicts of interest and also consider the ethical implications,” said Irena Joveva, the negotiator on the law for the liberal Renew group.
Joveva said it was “necessary” for the European Parliament to establish binding rules to ensure parliamentarians working on a law are not able to hold any other positions that could “possibly” influence their political work.
“This should be for everyone,” she said. “This is Petra’s responsibility and the S&D group’s responsibility to decide and to see how it goes, but the rules are such at the moment.”