Brussels, 14/02/2005 (Agence Europe) - Jens-Peter Bonde, Danish co-president of the Independence and Democracy group at the European Parliament, welcomed in a press statement the Commission's decision to publish “a long list of all the working groups, which have worked for the Commission in 2004”. He was pleased that the fight for transparency “which until now has been kept secret for everyone contained in the first counting more than 3000” but which had been reduced to a minimum of 1684 and only counted the groups that were active in 2004. “I find it completely absurd that even the Committee of budgetary Control, whose purpose is to control the budgets of the EU, has not had access to any information about who sits in the groups and what they actually are doing there”. Mr Bonde said that remuneration and travelling expenses for group members were paid by European tax payers, who had the right to know what was done with the money. Bonde said that the “next step is to fight for getting the names of the members of the different groups. I will not accuse anybody of fraud or exploitation of the system, but it is clear that if you know that no one is able to check your accounts or your work, the risk of being tempted is stronger”, concluded the MEP.