Lobby register review: it's now or never for mandatory transparency

06 March 2013
by altereu -- last modified 07 March 2013

The review of the Commission and Parliament's Joint Transparency Register) – foreseen to take place two years after its launch – is already underway. ALTER-EU believes this is an unmissable opportunity to make the voluntary lobby register mandatory, with improved disclosure requirements.

The review is our last chance to deliver the public's right to know who's influencing their laws, by ensuring more comprehensive and reliable data on lobbyists.

The review process so far has been comprised of behind-closed door meetings involving the responsible Commissioner, Maros Sefcovic, MEP Rainer Wieland (Vice-President of the European Parliament for transparency), and a number of "stakeholders" including ALTER-EU.

A cross-party group of seven MEPs have written to MEP Wieland, emphasising that an open and comprehensive review process is needed, and reiterating the Parliament's position that the current voluntary register should be replaced by a mandatory register, with more extensive reporting requirements.

ALTER-EU shares this position, and welcomes the resistance against a narrow and short review process that envisages only minor 'technical' changes to the register.

ALTER-EU's coordinator Koen Roovers says: "If the 'Transparency Register' is ever to provide a realistic picture of the influence of lobbyists, it is vital that the position of MEPs and civil society across Europe – for a mandatory lobby register – is taken on board in the review process. Without this, we risk entrenching the current voluntary system, which has resulted in flawed registrations and large numbers of lobbyists choosing to remain unregistered. For citizens to take part in the European democratic debate, they need to feel that they are taken seriously, which starts with enabling genuine public scrutiny over European policy-making."

The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU) is a coalition of about 200 civil society groups, trade unions, academics and public affairs firms concerned with the increasing influence exerted by corporate lobbyists on the political agenda in Europe, the resulting loss of democracy in EU decision-making and the postponement, weakening, or blockage even, of urgently needed progress on social, environmental and consumer-protection reforms.

Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU)