The Commission has just launched a consultation on the Transparency Register. ( EPHA will be part of a civil society effort to push for more transparency and encourage its members to respond.
European institutions interaction with civil society, NGOs, businesses, trade and professional organisations, trade unions, and think thanks is constant, legitimate and necessary for the quality of democracy, as they hold potential to deliver adequate policies, matching needs and reality.
Citizens have a right to expect this process to be transparent and to take place in compliance with the law as well as in due respect of ethical principles, avoiding undue pressure, illegitimate or privileged access to information or to decision makers.
– Please advise your members of the consultation
The joint European Parliament Commission Secretariat of the Register has launched a public consultation in June till 31 August. This consultation is an opportunity for civil society to highlight the importance of having a transparency register for public policy making. This initiative also helps citizens to understand who is trying to influence EU policy-making.
In this context, the Commission will meet with the Civil Society Contact Group to discuss the impact of the Transparency Register on NGOs.
These meetings and the consultation will be done in view of drafting the first annual report on how the register operated during the 1st year. This is a separate process from the review of the register which shall take place in 2013. The contributions will be analysed after the summer and the annual report should be finalised afterwards.
The CSCG and Alter EU developed guidelines for registering for NGOs EPHA strongly encourages members to use the guidelines which call for higher standards of transparency to use the guidelines when filling in the Transparency Register.
The Parliament legal services had a briefing that cites the CSCG-ALTER EU crticisims of the register
The CSCG will develop a common Consultation response, that the EPHA secretariat will circulate to members asking them to resubmit along with other members of the Contact Group.
—-
EPHA related articles:
-[->5096]
-[->4582]
-[->4116]
-[->2278]
-[->2289]
-[->4213]