The European Parliament’s recent vote in favour of reforming the EU lobby register shows a sincere approach to improving legislative transparency, a reform badly needed after a string of high profile scandals. The decision sees the merging of the European Parliament and European Commission’s separate lobby registers, and provides a golden opportunity to reform the EU’s lax lobbying oversight procedures. Most importantly, European citizens should finally gain a better understanding of this opaque industry’s influence on the laws emerging from Brussels.
The power of EU lobby groups has been an unknown quantity for too long. The EU’s steady accrual of legislating power has seen Brussels’ lobbying presence grow at an astonishing rate. With the EU’s authority under constant expansion, making decisions for 27 countries on everything from food packaging to CO2 emission levels, businesses understand that Brussels is where they need to be to have an influential voice in modern Europe. Thus the EU capital has become a hive of lobbyists seeking to sway EU parliamentarians: Alter-EU estimates that there are more than 15,000 lobbyists in Brussels (Washington DC, the lobby-capital of the world, has approximately a third less than this).
Yet, despite Brussels’ extraordinary boom in lobbying, the EU has until now failed to make any meaningful attempt to understand the influence and sums involved. The Commission’s 2008 register was launched to great fanfare, but its voluntary nature made a mockery of any real attempt to regulate lobbying. It is estimated that only 40% of lobbying firms had joined the register by 2010 and, of those that had signed up, many significantly miscalculated their funds.Wednesday’s vote in favour of joining the two registers is so monumental because it restores some credibility to the EU legislative process.
Firstly, the new transparency register will provide a better opportunity for keeping a watchful eye over influential lobby groups: more staff are to be allocated to oversee the new register and there are indications that rules will be tightened and financial loopholes closed. Secondly, the vote clears the way for mapping the EU’s ‘legislative footprint’. From the June launch onwards, all exchanges between MEPs and lobbyists will be linked to parliamentary reports. Under the new system the idea of dodgy backroom dealings (as recently uncovered by the Times cash-foramendments scandal) will, hopefully, become a thing of the past. Having said that, it will still be voluntary for lobby groups to join the new transparency register. However, this time there is at least an incentive to add your dealings – only those signed-up will get access to EU individuals, in the form of a pass to the European Parliament. Anyone seeking to influence EU legislators will need this golden ticket.
The EU’s efforts to rejuvenate its lobby register comes just weeks after the EU attempted to tighten its ‘code of conduct’ for ex-commissioners, following a spate of high profile officials moving swiftly into lucrative lobbying roles after leaving their office. The EU has sought to clarify the permissible circumstances of accepting a lobbying role and reduce the prevalence of ‘revolving door’ syndrome, (previously considered a quirk of US politics), although it could still do more to clamp down on its pervasiveness.
The EU remains democratically deficient in many fields, but its latest attempt at opening up lobbying practises to public scrutiny and improving transparency of the legislative process is a significant step forward. More should be done to continue the effort – starting with the Council’s addition to the register.