Brussels, 28/04/2006 (Agence Europe) - The Commission is to adopt its Green Paper on improving transparency within the European institutions on 3 May. This Green Paper takes up most of the elements of its document of November 2005) EUROPE 9066). The publication of the Green Paper will kick off a consultation lasting until the end of the year, with interested parties.
Lobbies: the Commission proposes to implement, under its own aegis, a voluntary registration system for lobbies working in Brussels, to include incentives to sign this register (it will automatically consult all groups which have signed the register), and a common code of conduct for all pressure groups and lobbies, or at least joint minimum requirements. It believes that it is preferable for the profession itself to draw up the code of conduct than for the Commission to do so itself. The public relations company "Hill and Knowlton" explains that creating a common code may pose problems, particularly for lawyers, whose codes of ethics may contradict the principal of client transparency. The Commission, which is proposing a monitoring and sanction system, has decided not to propose any obligation to register or to sign a code of conduct for the time being.
Fund beneficiaries: the Commission is already providing information on those who benefit from aid under the EU budget which the Commission manages exclusively. It is setting up a central web portal with links to information available on the end beneficiaries of these funds. For all funds with decentralised management (external policies), it has no accounting information on the end beneficiaries, but exercises control over decisions to grant funding and on the payments. The Commission points out that divulging information on the beneficiaries of European funds with shared management (agricultural and fishing policy, structural funds, cohesion fund and European refugee fund, which absorbed over 75% of Community credits each year) is left up to the discretion of the Member States. The level of information made public "differs greatly" from country to country, it points out. Information on beneficiaries of agricultural funds is disclosed in 10 Member States (Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Slovenia and the United Kingdom), but with "major differences in the details", and France decided recently to publish a list of certain major beneficiaries of agricultural funds. For the Structural Funds, data pertaining to the beneficiaries are compiled by the countries, but these are neither centralised nor made available to the public. The Commission is therefore proposing a debate on whether to bring in Community legislation obliging the Member States to divulge data on the beneficiaries of European funds coming under the heading of shared management.
The Commission is also to launch a debate between the institutions of the EU on ethical rules, the revision of the legislation on access to documents and the revision of the legal framework of Olaf, to ensure that the Member States are systematically notifying the results of national investigations into cases of fraud.