Mandatory or voluntary? Time for a lobby register that really works!

Publication date: 
mardi, June 4, 2013
Mandatory or voluntary
Start date: 
lun, 2013-06-17 18:30
Location: 
Brussels, European Parliament (for EP-internal technical reasons, the room number will be confirmed to you at a later stage)

Ever since its inception, transparency groups have argued that the voluntary nature of the joint Transparency Register of the European Commission and the European Parliament makes that major lobby groups are not yet signed up to or still missing from the register, and that the information provided is not always correct and sometimes even incorrect.

AK EUROPA, the Brussels office of the Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour, the ÖGB Europabüro, the Brussels office of the Austrian Trade Union Federation, and ALTER-EU, the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation, would like to invite you to a panel discussion about the joint Transparency Register of the European Commission and the European Parliament.

The register came into force in June 2011. The register’s voluntary nature has been a point of discussion since its introduction. Several stakeholders have pointed out that major lobby groups are not yet signed up to or still missing from the register, and that the information provided is not always correct and sometimes even incorrect.

While the European Parliament has spoken out a number of times in favour of a mandatory register, the current joint register is only on a voluntary base. One of the key points of contention has been whether a legal base for a mandatory register exists in the EU Treaties, with the European Commission arguing that it currently does not.

The Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour (Arbeiterkammer) and ALTER-EU have asked Markus Krajewski, Professor in Legal Studies at Erlangen-Nürnberg University in Germany, to prepare an analysis of whether such a legal base for a mandatory transparency register exists under the new EU treaties.

The results of that study will be presented and put to discussion by Professor Markus Krajewski.

Panelists:

  • Hosted and introduced by MEP Evelyn Regner, Vice-President of the Legal Affairs Committee
  • Markus Krajewski, Professor of Public and International Law at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
  • Bernd Biervert, deputy head of Cabinet of Maros Sefcovic, Vice-President of the European Commission for Interinstitutional Affairs
  • Angélique Hardy, assistant of MEP Monica Macovei, Member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs
  • Paul de Clerck, Coordinator Corporate Campaign Friends of the Earth International

The discussion will be held in English.

Please register using the following link: http://www.s2mailblaster.com/eventForm.asp?e=MjAw&c=MzU

Campaign: 
Full lobby transparency now!