Brussels, 07/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - More than half of the lobbying organisations' entries in the EU transparency register contain factual errors or implausible numbers, according to new analysis published on Monday 7 September by the NGO Transparency International, which has filed 4,253 official complaints with the secretariat of the transparency register.
New online monitoring tools, launched in June on Transparency International's central hub Integrity Watch, provide a comprehensive overview of lobbying meetings with the European Commission and allow systematic analysis of the statements of the lobbying organisations in the transparency register. They also reveal, however, the poor data quality of the register, the NGO says. “A few simple plausibility checks reveal that data which lobbyists voluntarily file with the lobby register is inaccurate, incomplete or outright meaningless”, it states.
Among the 4,253 alerts, Transparency International highlights 293 organisations which fail to report any activities covered by the register either by declaring nothing or by finding ways to complete the compulsory field without providing any information. Failure to declare activities is a “clear violation” of the code of conduct, the NGO states.
Transparency International also highlights that 3,844 organisations declare lobbying expenditure of less than a minimum wage when, according to register guidelines, financial information provided should include costs for staff, offices, in-house operations, representation, outsourced activities and membership fees. Of the total number, 171 organisations declare no lobby budget whatsoever and 2,698, including all of the total number of 1,193 consultancies, corporations and industry associations, declare even less than the minimum wage for interns. In addition, 121 organisations declare less than €10,000 in lobbying expenditure despite registering an address for a Brussels office. Brussels office space, particularly in the “European quarter”, is not cheap.
Lastly, 116 organisations declare more than €1,000,000 expenditure per lobbyist. Even the best-resourced organisations with credible entries barely spend half this amount, Transparency International argues.
The list of complaints includes organisations with household names such as Boeing, Yahoo, Walmart, Rio Tinto, Thalys, Brussels Airlines and KBC Bank.
Transparency International hopes that its complaints will be swiftly acted upon by the Commission and that incorrect data are corrected and uncooperative organisations removed from the register. Furthermore, it calls for more systematic checks and verification to encourage lobbying organisations to keep their entries up to date and to ensure that those whose registration has lapsed lose their access passes to the European Parliament and to high-level meetings of the Commission. (Emmanuel Hagry)