Brussels, 31/10/2013 (Agence Europe) - The Alter-EU NGO umbrella group launched an online petition on 30 October, calling for a compulsory transparency register of pressure and lobby groups. The register is currently optional.
The organisation says that the process to revise the transparency register that began in the summer of 2013 is an ideal opportunity to remedy shortcomings in the current system.
In June 2011, the European Commission and European Parliament launched a joint transparency register. The number of staff involved in lobbying, the main legislative proposals that lobby groups are working on and the amount of EU financing they have received, for example, must be revealed. In June 2013, some 5,700 organisations were registered.
Two years after its creation, however, a review is planned and a working group was set up in June under the auspices of EP Vice-President Rainer Wieland (EPP, Germany). Commissioner Maros Sefcovic is a member of the working group, which will issue recommendations in November. The idea is to have a vote at the EP on draft amendments before the end of the current European Parliament. The Council of Ministers, which is simply observing the process, may decide to back the agreement.
Nina Katzemich commented on behalf of Alter-EU that nearly every week, her organisation sees the impact of lobbying on decisions of public interest, be they about smoking, data protection or vehicle carbon emissions, and 80% of European citizens favour a compulsory register of lobbyists at the European institutions, like the system in the United States and Canada. The organisation wants measures to increase transparency, such as a statement from the Commission and its teams not to meet with unregistered lobbyists or attend conferences organised by them, and the introduction of a code of ethics.
Rainer Wieland says the feasibility of making the system compulsory is being looked into. The next working group meeting will be on 6 November. (LC/transl.fl)