Brussels, 24/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - A study published by Transparency International (TI) on Wednesday 24 June reveals that the overwhelming majority of lobby meetings held by European commissioners and their closest advisers are with representatives of corporate interests.
Analysis of the 4,318 lobby meetings declared by the top tier of European Commission officials between December 2014 and June 2015 shows that more than 75% were with corporate lobbyists. This compares to 18% with NGOs, 4% with think tanks and 2% with local authorities. Google, General Electric and Airbus are among the most active lobbyists at this level, with 29, 26 and 25 meetings respectively. BusinessEurope tops the table on numbers of meetings with 42.
Of the 7,908 organisations who have voluntarily registered in the EU Transparency Register - the register of EU lobbyists - 4,879 seek to influence political decisions of the European Union on behalf of corporate interests. Exxon Mobil, Shell and Microsoft (all €4.5 million each) are the top three companies in terms of lobby budgets according to their declarations made to the EU Transparency Register. “The evidence of the last six months suggests there is a strong link between the amount of money you spend and the number of meetings you get”, said Daniel Freund of Transparency International EU. The organisations with the biggest lobby budgets get a lot of access, particularly on the financial, digital and energy portfolios, he added.
The Climate and Energy portfolio (487 meetings), Jobs and Growth (398), Digital Economy (366) and Financial Markets (295) currently receive most attention from lobbyists. The commissioners in charge of the latter three, Jyrki Katainen, Jonathan Hill and Günther Oettinger, also have particularly low numbers for meetings with civil society - 3, 3 and 2 respectively, representing between 4% and 8% of the total number of their declared meetings. Large global NGOs, such as WWF and Greenpeace, are in the Top 10 of organisations with most meetings. Meetings with civil society, however, are often held as large roundtable events with multiple participants.
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, on taking up his position in November 2014, instructed his commissioners ensure an appropriate balance and representativeness in the stakeholders they meet, a TI press release notes.
The data reveal, too, that 80% of the 7,821 organisations currently registered did not have a single meeting reported with a commissioner or a member of cabinet, something which Transparency International argues demonstrates the limitations of the European Commission's new transparency provisions. Lower-level officials, such as the team negotiating the free-trade agreement with the US, TTIP, are not covered, TI regrets.
Transparency International also found that many organisations are still not on the register. This includes 14 of the 20 biggest law firms in the world that all have Brussels offices, such as Clifford Chance, White and Case or Sidley Austin. 11 out of these 14 law firms have registered as lobby organisations in Washington DC where registration is compulsory.
According to TI, over 60% of organisations that lobbied the European Commission on TTIP do not properly declare these activities. On the broad reform package of financial services entitled “Capital Markets Union”, many banks - including HSBC, BNP Paribas and Lloyds - that have had meetings on this topic fail to declare in the lobby register that they are active in this area. (Lionel Changeur)