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Over 100 NGOs call for lobby transparency

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Over 100 NGOs call for lobby transparency

12-05-2015

113 non-governmental organisations and trade unions, including Democracy International, have urged European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans to take strong and urgent action to create a high-quality and legally-binding EU lobby transparency register in a letter sent to him this week.

The open later calls on the European Commission to adopt measures to reduce unethical lobbying, and to ensure a better balance between corporate and public interest groups in the access to EU decision-making processes. The letter was launched by the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (Alter-EU) and signed by over 100 organisations, including support by the European Parliament Intergroup on Integrity. 

Civil society groups welcome the steps the Juncker Commission has taken to increase lobby transparency at the European level, including the ban on senior Commission representatives holding meetings with unregistered lobbyists. However, the current measures still do not go far enough to ensure that the register is “mandatory” in practice as the ban on meetings with lobbyists only covers around 300 people out of a Commission staff of 33,000,

The letter makes the following recommendations:

  • The Commission immediately extends its ban on meeting unregistered lobbyists so that it applies to all staff, to further boost registrations.

  • The Commission makes detailed proposals on the disclosure of additional and more precise information, including expenditure on lobbying activities and further details about the dossiers lobbied on.

  • The Commission commits to an open and transparent process with other EU institutions to improve the lobby register, which would include substantial opportunities for input by citizens and civil society.

  • The Commission commits to increasing the resources devoted to this area so that monitoring and enforcement of the rules can become far more effective.

  • The Commission commits to including the objective of a lobby register that is legally-binding on lobbyists and thus truly mandatory (requiring legislation) in its proposed Inter-Institutional Agreement as a medium-term option to ensure that all EU lobbyists sign up.

Download the open letter here (website of Alter-EU)

 

Tags: 
Transparency
PDF File: 
PDF icon Open Letter to Timmermans

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