During the Lisbon campaign the point was made that there were moves to bring EU lobbying under control with monitoring and transparency measures. An article in today's euobserver slates the new EU lobbyist registry launched today -
http://euobserver.com/9/26370The objective of the register is "to increase the transparency with which the EU handles the responsibilities and funds entrusted to it by the European citizen."
The euobserver article system that will be used
- Quote :
- Such an inaccurate reporting system will grossly hide, or grossly exaggerate, actual lobbying expenditures, depending on how one wants to interpret the value of the financial tier.
To allow an alternative reporting of percentage ranges is to mix apples and oranges in the transparency basket, which can serve no logical purpose other than to befuddle the public. And all this masking of lobbying financial activity does not even make the reporting requirement any easier on lobbyists.
It is disappointing that the European Commission is retreating from its earlier commitment to transparency.
Until now, the Commission had led the charge for the openness in government that is so critical to gaining the public's trust. But the implementation of the ETI (European Transparency Initiative) that is now unfolding betrays that trust.
Is this another confirmation that EU "reforms" are ineffective window dressing?
Portal