The EU institutions have good codes of conduct, but their application is often unreliable. Former Commission President Barroso moved to the investment bank Goldman Sachs. While beeing still in office he met with the bank remarkably often. Ex-Commissioner Oettinger states out loud that he wants to become a lobbyist in the near future. When politicians committed to the general interest quickly take the revolving door into a lobbying job, it creates the impression of venality and undermines trust. Also, the unpunished violation of the actually good rules of conduct in the EU Commission damages trust. For example, when Neelie Kroes refused to disclose a company in the Bahamas, for whose envisaged activities she became Commissioner for Competition, yet was never sanctioned. In the European Parliament, Transparency International has also discovered more than 20 violations of the Code of Conduct, which, however, remained without sanction. It causes problems that MEPs decide on MEPs and Commissioners on former Commissioners. With this system of self-regulation, existing rules are often not enforced.

It would be better if they did not monitor this on their own or even left this to completely independent arbitrators:  For example, in an independent ethics body like the one that already has been established in France, for example. I developed this concept for the EU during my time at Transparency International. We Greens then incorporated it into the programme for the 2019 European elections. The idea is now on the EU Commission’s work programme.As rapporteur in the European Parliament, I am committed to ensuring that it is now implemented swiftly and effectively.

Rights of investigation, increased personnel and other resources than before will also contribute to this.

Lobby Transparency

Transparent representation of interests is  good. But lack of transparency in lobbying is poison for democracy. The public must be able to understand and monitor whether, for example, financially potent interests are heard more than others. The European Parliament and the European Commission have established a transparency register for lobbyists. EU Commissioners only meet lobbyists listed in this register and publish these meetings. We Greens have jointly succeeded in enforcing that MEPs who write EU laws must now also disclose their meetings. The lobbying meetings should be annexed to every draft law as a legislative footprint – so it is clear which lobbyist has contributed to which law. As negotiator for the reinforcement of the transparency register, I am committed to ensuring that the lobby register becomes mandatory for all persons involved in legislative processes.

No Secrecy in legislation

Everyone in the EU has the fundamental right of access to documents. Every EU institution must answer every question (with a few exceptions) in each of the 24 official EU languages within 15 working days. The NGO Access Info Europe offers a practical tool for this purpose.

Unfortunately, the Council of Member States is an exception. For months, sometimes years, neither citizens, journalists nor national MPs can track which position an EU government takes in legislative negotiations. Also the EU Commission too often sides with the secrecy interests of an EU government – be it in the negotiation mandate of a trade agreement like CETA or the examination of the conflict of interests of the Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis – and not with the citizens. 

We, the Greens, have often successfully sued for the release of documents, for example on studies on the toxic nature of glyphosate. Where power and money are at stake, I stand up for the implementation of better transparency standards, whether in the legislative negotiations of the EU institutions (trialogues) or in the use of MEPs’ expense allowances. I lead by example wherever I can. IF interested, take a look at my publication of lobby meetings and expenses.