EU lobbying transparency a step closer but still some way to go

Background

The European Commission has long consulted expert committees - comprised mainly of government experts from each Member State and representatives of civil society, industry and scientists - to better address the technicalities inherent in the application of EU legislation, via a practice known as ’comitology’.

’Comitology’ first emerged forty years ago as it became increasingly apparent that the EU institutions themselves lacked the resources to develop implementation rules for every EU law. The procedure was reformed in 2006 to give the European Parliament the right to revoke Commission decisions on the implementation of legislation.

EU accused of heavy reliance on industry lobbyists

On 25 March 2008, the transparency group Alter-EU has accused the European Commission of relying too heavily on business and industry lobbyists when drawing up EU legislation. Alter-EU, made up of 160 organisations, said the Commission has over-filled its advisory expert groups with industry lobbyists.

In a report "Secrecy and corporate dominance - a study on the composition and transparency of European Commission Expert Groups", Alter-EU says some of the Commission’s most controversial advisory groups such as those on biotechnology, clean coal and car emissions are among those controlled by industry.

The report found that industry representatives made up more than half of the membership of a quarter of the groups surveyed while 32% percent had members representing a "wide range of interests." The remainder of the 44 groups surveyed were considered "unbalanced." Only one Expert Group was unbalanced in favour of NGOs: the EU Health Forum, of which EPHA is the secretariat.

Alter-EU also accused Brussels of not being transparent about the composition of such expert groups, which are there to advise commission policy-makers.

The transparency campaigners say they choose the 44 groups from what they consider "key policy areas" - the environment, energy, agriculture, consumers, health, water and biotechnology.

According to their report, the total number of expert groups has increased by more than 40% since 2000 with one group for every eight officials working in the European Commission. Total membership of the groups runs to over 50,000.

The report found that a climate change panel, for example, had 30 industry representatives, 13 commission officials, plus 7 further members coming from NGOs and universities and a regional member.

Commission’s reaction: identification of experts in advisory groups

The day afterwards, on 26 March 2008, the Commission has said it will publish a list of individual experts who sit on its advisory groups by the summer.

"We are compiling [lists of] the names of experts [sitting] in the groups in an individual capacity" as well as "the number of bodies represented," said Commission spokesperson Valérie Rampi on 25 March. Lists of "individuals who participate in their own personal capacity rather than as representatives of organisations" will be made available "by the summer," she added.

Parliament’s call for a mandatory register of lobbyists

On 1 April 2008, a European Parliament committee called for a mandatory register of the estimated 15-20,000 lobbyists in Brussels that wander the halls of the European institutions aiming to influence legislation.

A report approved by the Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee recommends that ’interest representatives’ – commonly known as lobbyists – be forced to be listed in a joint register covering the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council – where Member States are represented.

In earlier drafts of the report by Finnish centre-right MEP Alexander Stubb outlining a series of rules for lobbyists, it had been suggested that such a register be voluntary, as is the case with the current proposed lobbyist register for the European Commission.

However, the committee approved a series of amendments to the draft report that also would demand "full financial disclosure" of public affairs consultancies and law firms, covering their turnover, expenditures associated with lobbying and, in the case of NGOs and think-tanks, their budget and sources of funding.

The inclusion of think-tanks in the proposal was also a major win for transparency campaigners, who argued that the research bodies, which had earlier been excluded from the report, were "a major part of the lobbying community" in Brussels.

European Parliament to cut ties with business group

The European Parliament agreed to cut ties with a business scheme, that aims to bolster relationships between MEPs and business by providing a range of programmes including ’company attachments’. [1]

The scheme, the European Business and Parliament Scheme(EBPS) was approved an office in parliament in September 2007 and the employees have the same email addresses as euro-deputies.

Ms Frassoni, an Italian MEP, asked whether there was any lobbying activity during the scheme. Ms Frassoni said that the scheme was very open and there was nothing inherently "evil" about the scheme but it was wrong to grant this unprecedented level of unfettered access to MEPs.

Mr Hyde-Chambers, secretary general of the EBPS said that there was a "sophisticated mechanism" in place to prevent it being a purely lobbying set up. However, against a backdrop of calls for greater transparency and the moves to clean up the house already covered in this article, the scheme was too unclear in its motives.

European Parliament votes to enforce more stringent controls on lobbyists.

On the 9th of May 2008 MEPs passed a resolution, by an overwhelming majority, to ensure the transparency and tightening of rules for those wishing to influence the EU’s three main institutions. the latest requirements would force lobbyists to produce income detail and to become part of a mandatory register. This register would apply across the board so that any lobbyist registered in one institution would immediately be registered in all three, according to the one-stop-shop proposals.

The register would also call for details of major clients and the amount of money spent on lobbying activities. Not only would this apply to lobbyists per say, but also to think tanks who would have to reveal their sources of funding.

Monica Frassoni, an Italian MEP for the green party who has been involved in the transparency debate from an early stage, said that these measures do not go far enough as full financial disclosure it is not required. She went on to criticise the decision to exclude lawyers form these measures, saying that it was "absurd" as "lawyers play an increasingly important role in influencing policy in Brussels and they promote themselves as such on their own websites."

The measures are aimed to be in place by June 2009 and the Commission is expected to launch its voluntary online register next month.

EU accused of ’step back’ in transparency

The EU’s transparency watchdog will today strongly criticise the European Commission’s commitment to openness, saying its recent proposals on document access represent a "step backwards."

At a hearing in parliament on 2 June to discuss the proposed overhaul of public access to document rules, EU ombudsman Nikiforos Diamandouros said: "The commission’s proposals would mean access to fewer, not more, documents" and that the new code "ignores the lessons of the past."

Commission to Publish List of Experts

The European Commission is to publish a list of individual experts who sit on its ‘expert groups’ as part of its ongoing effort to boost transparency.

Three representatives of Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation(Alter-EU) - Paul de Clerck (Friends of the Earth Europe, Jorgo Riss (Greenpeace’s European unit and Corporate Europe Observatory’s Erik Wesselius met Siim Kallas European vice-president and Commissioner responsible for administrative affairs, audit and anti-fraud, to discuss the issue of transparency. this move follows the release of a report from Alter-EU which accuses the Commission of secrecy and bias towards corporates within its expert groups. The group called for the Commission to respond to six demands:

 Disclosure of expert group membership and key documents
 Full transparency around the launch of expert groups
 Open and fair processes around the application for and selection of membership
 Strong safeguards against privileged access and unbalanced composition of these groups
 Dissolution of all expert groups controlled by industry (or any other special interests)
 A broad review on the composition of all expert groups by the Commission’s secretariat-general

There are around 1,200 expert groups, whose membership comprises mainly government experts from member states and representatives of civil society, corporates and scientists. The Commission has run an on-line register of expert groups since 2005 but has not previously named individuals.

“The register is being further upgraded, since the Commission is now in the process of collecting and publishing the names of members of the different groups – this shall be completed by the summer.” Commented one commission official.

The register of experts will name those who are participating in their own capacity rather than as representatives of organisations.

Paul le clerk reacted to the meeting saying: "Alter-EU considers that as a positive and important step to improve transparency. However, we were not satisfied at all with Mr Kallas’ response to the question of what he will do to address expert groups dominated by a specific interest."

"He said that it is up to the individual commissioners to ensure that they take the views of all stakeholders into account in the areas where they are responsible. He is not planning any concrete measures to ensure balanced composition."

Comments

Erik Wesselius, of ALTER-EU was pleased with the result. "We’re quite positive," he said. "We had been very disappointed with the first draft," he added, "but with these amendments, it’s much better and in particular there is now a clear choice in favour of a mandatory register and full financial disclosure."

He was also hopeful that the report would put pressure on the European Commission to adopt similar measures in its proposed lobbying register.

"The parliament’s report gives a strong incentive for the commission to move in the direction of a mandatory register as well."

Both Mr Wesselius and Mr Turmes still felt however that the timetable for the implementation of a lobbying registry was too lengthy.

"We’ve already spent three years on the European Transparency Initiative," said the ALTER-EU campaigner. "Another three years for the implementation of a registry would total six years that Europe’s been working on this – a schedule that’s pretty hard to explain to citizens."

"The registry needs to be implemented before the parliamentary elections of 2009. We need to have an ambitious timetable," said Mr Turmes.

He also said that he wants to see a public list of lobbyists excluded from the register for misbehaviour, and pointed out that "full financial disclosure" would only be meaningful if a full break-down of lobbying expenditure is described.

"We need to know how much, say, BASF, has been spending lobbying around REACH [the European chemicals legislation] on reports, conferences and so on." The bandwidth for such financial disclosure in the US lobbyist register is expenditures of less than $10,000, but there is as yet no detail as to what financial disclosure means in Europe.

"A bandwidth of under €100,000, as has been suggested, doesn’t give journalists or civil society a strong enough tool to see where the money goes."

---

For further information:

 ALTER EU press release

 The role of Expert Groups and the online register of groups

 The Comitology register

 The List of Comitology Committees assisting the Commission (February 2008)

 The Commission’s Transparency Initiative