transparency

Commissioner Barnier has surprisingly announced a temporary ban on meetings with the financial lobby. An important and telling step, but more is needed if the objective is to curb the lobbying power of the banks.

On 7 October, the second round of negotiations for a far-reaching transatlantic trade deal will begin in Brussels. Amidst calls for greater openness and public participation, the European Commission has gone into propaganda mode, promoting myths about the transparency and accountability of the talks. See through its feel-good rhetoric with Corporate Europe Observatory’s myth-busting guide to secrecy, corporate influence and lack of accountability in the transatlantic trade negotiations.

What lessons can we learn from the US experience of a mandatory lobby register? As MEPs consider whether to opt for a mandatory EU lobby register, CEO analyses the myths and facts surrounding the US system.

CEO responds to the Commission's positive picture of its handling of revolving doors cases and conflicts of interest. Can the Commission afford to be quite so complacent?

At Corporate Europe Observatory, we've been receiving a lot of questions recently about the current review of the EU's lobby transparency register, from NGOs, students and journalists: do we know how it is going, what are our expectations? It's hardly surprising that there are questions: the review process so far has happened with virtually no transparency. The ALTER-EU coalition and Transparency International have repeatedly argued that a process which is aimed at boosting transparency should be transparent itself, but so far with no result.

In response to an access to documents request from CEO, the European Commission has released a list of 130 ‘meetings with stakeholders’ on the EU-US free trade talks. It shows that more than 93% of the Commission’s meetings with stakeholders during the preparations of the negotiations were with big business.

The register secretariat has now informed CEO that the changes introduced by EPA "meet the requirements" and that they have therefore decided to close the case. But while the EPA's updated register entry now discloses its corporate backers, it remains silent about its links with lobby consultancy firms Competere and DCI Group.

A far-reaching trade deal between the US and EU is to be negotiated, yet the European Commission has drawn a smokescreen over who is setting the agenda for its negotiating position. Amid concerns about the deal's social and environmental impacts, as well as what it will mean for democratic policy-making, Corporate Europe Observatory tried to find out what will be on the treaty table.

“The Dalli case shows the system works,” an EU official told a public debate in Brussels last week, following a question on whether new ethics and transparency reforms will follow the Dalli-gate lobby scandal. The Commission is clearly in denial. The ex-Commissioner's resignation may still be shrouded in mystery, but the need for greater transparency and tighter rules to prevent undue influence could not be more clear. A quick look at lobby transparency systems in Canada and elsewhere can be instructive on this.

Since the start of the eurocrisis, the European Commission has gained significant new powers to monitor and intervene in government budgets at a member-state level in the name of ‘economic governance’. But power must be accountable.