Brussels, 25/03/2008 (Agence Europe) - The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU) called, on Tuesday 25 March, for the European Commission to “dissolve” some of its expert groups which are “dominated by industry lobbyists”. In a press release, ALTER-EU, a coalition of 160 civil society groups, trade unions, academics and public affairs firms, announced the publication of its report, “Secrecy and Corporate Dominance”, which examines the composition and transparency of European Commission expert groups (for the study, go to: http://www.alter-eu.org/publications/secrecy-and-corporate-dominance-study ).
According to ALTER-EU, the study reveals that industry representatives have disproportionate influence in a number of the Commission's most controversial expert groups, including advisory groups on issues such as “biotechnology”, “clean coal” and “car emissions”.
It says that, in the composition of over two thirds of the groups studied in the report, there was not proper balance. ALTER-EU was also critical of the fact that the Commission failed to provide sufficient information on the make up of the expert groups.
The Commission had made transparency “one of its strategic objectives”, said the spokeswoman of European Commissioner for Administration Siim Kallas. “We have met the commitments made since the start of the Commission,” she added, citing inter alia the initiatives on publication of the name of beneficiaries of Community funding and transparency of lobbying activities.
The undertakings made in 2004 with regard to expert groups were met in 2005, the spokeswoman added. The Commission has, indeed, published an online register of all (currently 1192) expert groups on its internet site (http://www.ec.europa.eu/transparency/regexpert ). This register is constantly updated. The Commission is gathering information on the names of the expert groups and the names of representative organisations. This should be completed by summer. In addition, the Commission is assessing the rules governing expert groups (including the application of transparency rules).
On the subject of the industry representation, the Commission pointed out ALTER-EU's very limited sample in its report (only 32 groups out of the almost 1200). Industry does not have most representatives on Commission expert groups, Kallas's spokeswoman, said. Experts from national administrations and authorities made up almost two thirds of expert groups, with scientists and academics accounting for roughly one third. Industry experts only make up 20% of expert groups, she said. (L.C.)