Samenvatting

The article aims to compare the current legal status of codes of conduct (if any) in five different EU-countries. Its starting point is the recent legal initiative in the Netherlands to abolish the existing status for officials and to replace it with contracts of employment. The parliamentary initiators indicate ethical elements as crucial for the employment relation in the public sector. Does this imply that a code of conduct has to be established?
The article first focuses on the historical evolution of codes of conduct in different EU-Member States. Within the UK, integrity has always been considered a key stone of the civil service. However, it took until the nineties until a code of conduct was set out. The spread out of the importance of integrity for civil servants has spread out later in continental Europe. The impact of the theory of New Public Management, through the OECD, was therefore crucial. Consequently, Belgium and Germany developed codes of conduct while France and the Netherlands paid more attention to weight of ethical behavior in the public sector.
Currently, it stays beyond any doubt that the codes of conduct in the UK have got a binding legal value. This value has not yet been achieved by the Belgian and the German codes. The article defends the point of view that a binding code in the Netherlands can be a useful tool.