Brussels, May 8 - The Alliance for Lobbying
Transparency and Ethics Regulation in the EU (ALTER-EU) welcomes the European
Parliament's approval today of the report on "Framework for the activities
of lobbyists in the EU institutions". The report sends a strong message to
the European Commission by calling for a mandatory register, including
lobbyists names, their clients or funders and financial disclosure on
registered lobbying activities. The Commission is expected to launch its own
register in mid-June - but under current proposals this will be purely
voluntary, and will not include meaningful financial data or the names of
individual lobbyists. "Commissioner Kallas must now act and strengthen the
Commission's weak proposals for EU lobbying transparency and ethics rules, as
he recently committed to do", says Erik Wesselius (Corporate Europe
Observatory).[1]
Despite this positive news, the plenary vote
today also produced some very disappointing changes to the report. A
controversial amendment creating a loophole for law firms was approved with the
votes of EPP-ED and ALDE. [2] "It is deeply disturbing that Brussels-based
law firms providing lobby consultancy services for corporate clients may now be
able to escape transparency obligations", says Uli Mueller (LobbyControl).
The approval in today's vote follows intensive lobbying by special interest
groups like the Council of Bars and Law Societies (CCBE). One of the MEPs that
tabled the amendment, German conservative Klaus-Heiner Lehne, works as a
partner in a law firm, advising on EU law. "This outcome shows the need
for the Parliament to clean up its own house and introduce strong rules to prevent
conflicts of interest", says Paul de Clerck (Friends of the Earth Europe).
ALTER-EU regrets that a majority of the
European Parliament rejected proposals to set an ambitious timeline for the
launch of a joint, inter-institutional register and to ensure immediate
improvements in the Parliament's own rules on lobbying. Also the proposed
sanction mechanism to the code of conduct was voted down, as were proposals
calling upon the Commission to improve transparency around its special
advisors, expert groups and comitology, and to act against potential conflicts
of interests and problematic revolving doors cases.
Despite the weakening of the report by
Christian Democratic and Liberal MEPs, the Parliament vote nevertheless sends a
strong message to Commissioner Kallas. The Commission now must stand up against
commercial lobbyists' pressure, include the names of lobbyists and introduce
serious financial disclosure obligations in its upcoming register.
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For more information please contact:
Paul de Clerck, Friends of the Earth Europe,
ph: +32-494380959, email: paul[at]milieudefensie.nl
Erik Wesselius, Corporate Europe Observatory,
tel: +31-30-2364422 (direct) or +31-20-6127023 (general office nr.) e-mail:
erik[at]corporateeurope.org
Ulrich Mueller, LobbyControl, tel: +49 221
1696507 or +49 170 3110089 (mobile) email: u.mueller[at]lobbycontrol.de
Jorgo Riss, Greenpeace, tel: +32 2 274 19 07
e-mail: jorgo.riss[at]diala.greenpeace.org
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