"In April 2012, in a joint publication, the EU Civil Society Contact Group (CSCG) and ALTER-EU not only cited fundamental flaws with the Transparency Register but indicated that their members would be adopting a higher standard of protection by way of recommendation."
A Commission spokesperson is quoted as referring in vehement and exaggerated terms to information requests made by “nutty NGOs”, claiming that “they think it's funny to waste officials' time” by making access to information requests.
Several Belgian media reported that MEP Dehaene is allowed to exert stock options granted by AB InBev, potentially amounting to around 3 million Euro. We are surprised to notice that those stock options are nowhere reported in Mr Dehaene’s current declaration of interest, despite the very clear obligations regarding declaration of outside interests.
On 8 May, the Budget Committee will vote on the European Commission's request to lift the reserve of two million Euros for meetings for expert groups. (Transfer of Appropriations No DEC 05/2012) The European Commission is requesting that this reserve is lifted without any of the conditions set by the European Parliament being fulfilled [...].
The Staff Regulations contain the ethics rules which govern 55,000 or more officials who work across the EU institutions. ALTER-EU considers that the current process to reform the Staff Regulations provides an opportunity to improve these ethics rules, especially those that relate to conflicts of interest during and after EU staff work for the EU.