A letter from ALTER-EU to President Juncker, based on analysis of the lobby meetings held by high-level officials in the Commission between 1 December 2014 and 23 June 2015.
1) Lobbyists representing businesses and trade associations make up 75 per cent of all high-level meetings and more than 80 per cent in certain areas such as financial regulation or the internal market. yet the Commission has committed to deliver balance in stakeholder representation. We conclude that the only effective way to achieve this is by limiting the number of meetings with big business lobbyists and increasing access by other stakeholders, including civil society organisations.
2) After the largely successful introduction of the meeting ban at the highest Commission levels, ALTER-EU calls upon President Juncker to extend the ban on meeting unregistered lobbyists to all levels of the Commission as a significant proportion of lobbying happens with Commission officials below the highest level.
3) For almost all commissioners, there is a discrepancy between their published agendas and the lobby meetings registered on the Commission websites, suggesting many meetings listed in the agenda were not reported afterwards. All commissioners must publish a complete list of their lobby meetings in a timely manner.
The research is available here and the reply is available here.
