The European Commission, which is determined to win back the trust of citizens in the Community institutions, adopted a proposal on Wednesday 28 September for an inter-institutional agreement between the European Parliament, the Council of the EU and the European Commission for a compulsory transparency register.
The Commission is proposing that the three institutions – including the Council – apply the same minimum standards. By virtue of these proposals, any meetings with decision-makers from any of the three institutions would be subject to prior inclusion in the transparency register.
Since the Commission brought this rule in for its own interactions with representatives of interest groups in November 2014, there have been around 4,000 new entries in the existing register, Frans Timmermans, First Vice-President of the Commission, told a press conference in Brussels.
The proposals on the table will open up all of the institutions of the EU in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg, he commented. He stressed the need to be aware of how lobbying works and to adopt rules that guarantee that lobbying runs correctly. "We want the Council and the European Parliament to commit to the same minimum standards" as those in force within the Commission, he added.
The rule will be 'no entry on the register, no meeting with representatives of the EU institutions'. The Commission wants the rule it has applied since November 2014 also to cover the members of the European Parliament, its secretary general and directors general and the secretaries general of the political groups. At Council level, the rule will apply to the permanent representatives and their alternates in the Presidency of the Council in place and of the next Presidency of the Council, as well as to the secretary general and to the directors general of the Council.
Registrants breaching the code of conduct may be handed a temporary suspension, stripping them of any right to interact with the institutions, or be struck off the register.
Exemptions for local and regional governments. The current register does not include certain specific entities (churches and religious communities, political parties, the governmental services of the member states, third-country governments, international inter-governmental organisations and their diplomatic missions). The new agreement confirms this and also exempts local and regional authorities and their representative associations from the obligation to register. According to the Commission, these public and democratically elected structures have special status in the European multi-level governance system and the representation of their interests cannot be equated to lobbying activities.
The proposal also specifies the range of activities and bodies covered; it encourages compliance with the code of conduct of the register, which lobbyists must respect; it will also simplify and improve the quality of data by streamlining requirements for the data to be included and improved quality control.
As of 28 September 2016, there were 9,935 entities registered on the register and these came under the following subcategories: - specialist consultancies/law firms/consultants acting independently (1143); - internal representatives, professional groups and union professional associations (5071); - non-governmental organisations (2516); - think tanks, research bodies and academic institutions (714); - organisations representing churches and religious communities (45) and organisations representing local, regional and municipal authorities, other public entities or joint entities (446).
Taking questions from the press, which focused particularly on excluding the permanent representatives of the member states from the scope of application, Timmermans stressed that the adoption of the text as proposed (to include the current and the next Presidencies of the Council) already equates to a considerable improvement. He said that there would be discussions at a later date regarding the permanent representations, but that this adoption already gives a good idea of what is going on at the Council and how decisions are made there.
Barroso and Kroes cases. Timmermans confirmed that the Commission was looking at the Barroso and Kroes affairs and intended to show transparency. He concluded by saying that the facts would be examined and the Commission would do what it has to do.
European Parliament hopes for reinforcement. Sylvie Guillaume MEP (S&D, France), Vice-President of the European Parliament, welcomed the proposed institutional agreement. She described it as a "highly anticipated" reform. She welcomes the new incremental system of penalties, arguing that this will help to ensure greater reliability of the data provided by interest groups and an increase of the human resources responsible for monitoring the register. The European Parliament has had a register of lobbyists since 1996. Without waiting for the other institutions, the Parliament made it a condition for all interest groups to have signed the register ahead of any access to the European Parliament, as soon as the joint transparency register was launched on 23 June 2011. In various resolutions since 2008, the Parliament has called upon the other European institutions to opt for a compulsory register. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)