Kommission führt Lobbyisten-Register ein

Administration and Anti-Fraud Commissioner Siim Kallas said lobbying is "a necessary and growing business" where "regulation is inescapable". He described the launch of the register as a "very important moment of cultural change in EU decision-making". Despite declaring himself "convinced" that a voluntary system is better than "heavy regulation", Kallas added: "The Commission has proposed a joint register for EU institutions and is pleased that the European Parliament supports the idea by proposing a joint working group to set up such a register as soon as possible." 

The register represents a challenge to lobbyists’ reputations as it is up to them to show that they have got nothing to hide, said a source at the EU executive. 

"The Commission's voluntary lobbyists register falls well short of Parliament's position on 8 May, which called for mandatory participation. The European Transparency Initiative is increasingly being exposed as a very pale imitation of the US' far-reaching Lobbying Disclosure Act," said MEP Monica Frassoni, the co-president of the Greens / EFA Group in the European Parliament. 

Frassoni described the register as "a Commission PR exercise that offers semblance but not substance of greater democratic scrutiny," adding: "It is an insult to the European Parliament and damaging to European citizens' trust in EU institutions and processes." 

Speaking on behalf of the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU), Erik Wesselius of Corporate Europe Observatory lamented the "low quality of information in the register". He added: "This voluntary lobby register is more of a token gesture for transparency than an actual step forward. The Commission is obviously more worried about protecting the identity of lobbyists than it is in increasing transparency and restoring citizens' trust in the EU at a time when such trust is needed most." 

Craig Holman of US transparency group Public Citizen believes that compared to other tested systems like that of the US, "the voluntary nature and distortion [of the Commission's register] make it look like one of the world's weakest registers". 

"Financial disclosure is cloaked within huge ranges under the Commission's register and you won't see who is lobbying on whose behalf," while "the register cannot be used as the basis for a common lobbyists register with Parliament and the Council as it stands," he added. 

Describing the voluntary Commission register as " only […] a first step and an interim solution," the head of Transparency International's EU Office, Jana Mittermaier, said: "More needs to be done if the public is to understand by whom and how the legislative procedure of the EU is influenced." 

Mittermaier called for the establishment of a strong and mandatory common lobbyists register covering the Commission, the Council and the Parliament to be ensured, "building upon the experience and the infrastructure of the European Commission register". 

Commenting on the EU executive's willingness to accept other codes of conduct as equivalent to its own, Lyn Trytsman-Gray, the president of the board of the Society of European Affairs Professionals (SEAP), said: "We are very pleased that the Commission is publicly acknowledging SEAP’s importance to the European Transparency Initiative by offering registrants the possibility to choose to observe SEAP's Code of Conduct".

The European Public Affairs Consultancies Association (EPACA) "intends to register as an organisation, and in turn advises its constituent member companies to register".