In preparation for the forthcoming German Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which will begin on 1st July, the NGOs Corporate Europe Observatory and LobbyControl, together with 92 MEPs, sent a letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday 12 June asking her to increase the transparency of the decision-making process in the EU Council.
“Now, more than ever, the transparency of decision-making and lobbying in both Brussels and Berlin is vital at a time when industry lobbyists are demanding bail-outs and deregulation”, the letter stresses.
In particular, the signatories call for the systematic publication of minutes of working group meetings, making the negotiating positions of the Member States public, as well as documents relating to legislative dossiers and interinstitutional negotiations (trilogues).
They also call on the incoming Presidency to support the revision of the European Transparency Register in the framework of the ongoing interinstitutional negotiations, in order to include meetings of the EU Council and of all Member States’ representations to the EU with lobby groups.
Finally, they urge the German Government to cancel all existing contracts for corporate sponsorship of the German Presidency, to refuse any such contracts and to launch a process in the EU Council to ban this practice for all future Presidencies.
See the letter: https://bit.ly/2Yq2koo (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)