On April 23, the European Parliament hosted a debate on the future of the EU lobby transparency register, organised by Vice President Sylvie Guillaume MEP and the ALTER-EU coalition. Under discussion were three main topics: How to ensure that the EU lobby register is relevant, accurate and reliable?; How to achieve a high-quality mandatory register?; and How to improve participation and the role of the Council and national-level registers?
Panellists, including the European Commission First Vice-President for Better Regulation Frans Timmermans, European Parliament Vice President for Transparency Sylvie Guillaume MEP and Head of Cabinet of the European Ombudsman Aidan O’Sullivan were expressive about these contentious issues.
The audience and some of the speakers showed great concern over the lack of transparency that the current system grants to issues where lobbying is a factor. They pointed out that lobbying has an important role in democracy, and that solid democracy can only be achieved with transparency.
The European Commission was keen to stress that it has been ranked second by Transparency International in a recent report on transparency in Europe. Timmermans announced a new proposal for an inter-institutional agreement between the three institutions (the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council), aiming to change the voluntary nature of the register to become mandatory. This proposal will be formally presented by the end of 2015.
Aidan O’Sullivan, representing the EU Ombudsman, challenged the Commission to make further improvements. He argued that although progress has been made, there is still not total transparency in decision-making processes.
The final words came from Ms Guillaume, who stated that increasing transparency would lead to a change in lobbying behaviours.
An article in new EU media outlet Politico.eu, published this week, has pointed to major loopholes in the EU’s transparency rules for lobbyists. Notably, the fact that Council and Permanent Representations do not adhere to the rules. That lower level Commission officials are not subject to the same level of disclosure as their bosses. And that lawyers are exempted from transparency requirements – which has led to many law firms being hired to do ‘undercover’ lobbying work as their clients – tobacco companies, for example – are not required to be disclosed in the register.