LOBBYING : COMMISSION AND EP TO REVIEW TRANSPARENCY REGISTER.

A year after the joint European Commission and European Parliament Transparency Register was established, the two institutions have started reviewing it. The register provides information about organisations trying to influence EU policy. The number of employees linked in any way to lobbies, the main legislative proposals these employees worked on, and the amount of EU financing they received are examples of information that should be made readily available.

The first annual review of the register(1), released on 27 November 2012, shows that all the targets for the first year of activity were met and that the transition (from the two previous registers to the joint register) has been successful since the number of registrees has not dropped. But the first annual review recommended that in future the quality of the content of the register should be improved, that communication efforts should be stepped up to increase registration and that measures should be taken to ensure rules are applied more strictly.

The first review also proposed looking into a tailor-made formula for law firms that respect the ethics of the register. Indeed, the latter are often reluctant to register and provide the names of their clients - a fact that NGOs have often complained of.

Lastly, the authors of the report stated that in the next report they aimed to review the voluntary nature of registration.

These and many more were the points raised as needing improvement in the revised (joint) version of the register. The Vice-President of the EP in...