EU institutions edge closer to common lobby register

"I look forward, as coordinator of the current Parliament delegation having negotiated with the Commission, to a final agreement early in the life of the new Parliament, and call on the incoming Swedish [EU] Presidency to take up this issue with a view to the Council also participating in the common register," said UK Liberal Democrat MEP Diana Wallis (ALDE), the European Parliament vice-president responsible for transparency and a member of the working group. 

Welcoming the agreement, Wallis said "the approval of a revised code of conduct for lobbyists and the guidelines for our future common register are a positive outcome for the transparency of the lawmaking process at EU level". 

Last week, the lobby register's founder, Administration and Anti-Fraud Commissioner Siim Kallas, told a European Policy Centre briefing that the scheme had been effective enough not to require a mandatory approach (EurActiv 20/04/09). 

"I am convinced that a voluntary approach is much better than a mandatory one, because it offers an incentive to join," Kallas said. 

Regarding the future common register, the commissioner warned that the two institutions may have to retain separate access requirements. "The kind of people who come to the Parliament is different from those who come to the Commission, so a common badge is not easy." 

But "the idea is that registrants should not have to make different applications," he said, adding: "The Parliament wants a common register before the elections, and it is realistic to expect that." 

In a letter addressed to the MEPs on the inter-institutional working group earlier this week, the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU), a transparency NGO, expressed its "growing concern over the final outcome of the [IWG's] deliberations," calling for a common, mandatory register with financial disclosure in brackets of €10,000 to be drawn up and providing clearer guidelines on how to declare lobbying. 

Describing the outcome of the talks as "extremely disappointing," Erik Wesselius of Corporate Europe Observatory, a transparency NGO, told EurActiv that "the 'portal page' and the joint code of conduct do not improve transparency on EU lobbying in any way. In fact, they implicitly endorse the Commission's flawed approach on lobbying transparency". 

Wesselius, a member of ALTER-EU's steering committee, continued: "While last year's EP resolution called for a mandatory register, the working group now concludes that a common register should start on a non-mandatory basis and should only include the names of lobbyists that have an access badge to the EP premises. And the working group made no concrete proposals for meaningful financial disclosure." 

"It's now up to the new Parliament to ensure that Europe will get true lobbying transparency," he concluded. 

Paul de Clerck of Friends of the Earth Europe, also involved with ALTER-EU, told EurActiv that the agreement is "very disappointing, as it assumes that the Commission's register is a success". 

"After almost 10 months, it is obvious that this lobby register is a failure. Only 20% of Brussels-based lobby groups (538 out of 2,600) have signed up, and important groups such as lawyers and think tanks are boycotting the register," he said. 

"The information in the register is often dubious," de Clerck continued. "Cefic, the lobby association for the chemical industry with about 150 people working in its Brussels office, claims to spend less than 50,000 euros on lobbying. In other cases, the information does not provide any transparency, for instance Burson-Marsteller claiming that all of its clients pay them between 0 and 690,000 euros for lobby work. 

"This weak proposal makes us question how serious the Commission's and the Parliament's commitments for transparency are," he concluded. 

Declan Ganley, who chairs the pan-European anti-Lisbon party Libertas, on Monday called for the establishment of "a 100% no exceptions mandatory register for lobbyists in Brussels" as part of his party’s commitment "to bringing accountability and transparency to European politics". 

Accusing Commissioner Kallas of "not requiring the 15,000 lobbyists in Brussels" to sign up despite "less than 9%" of them having registered of their own accord, Ganley described it as "completely unacceptable" that "lobbyists in Brussels will be left to regulate themselves". 

"The fact that thousands of lobbyists who influence the policy that affects everyone in Europe are doing so without having to identify themselves or declare their interests is indicative of the lack of transparency in Brussels as a whole," he said.