Lobbying EU lawmakers can still slip under the radar, according to an audit report published on Wednesday by the European Court of Auditors (ECA).
The EU transparency register is managed by a secretariat on behalf of three EU institutions: the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council. It provides information on who are lobbying them and has some positive features. Lobbying is an essential democratic tool and part of the democratic process, according to ECA.
It allows organisations and individuals to provide input for policy and decision-making. However, without transparency mechanisms, it can result in undue influence, unfair competition, and even corruption. The register in itself does not inform citizens about the potential negative influence of lobbyists.
The three institutions signed up to the EU transparency register (EUTR) in 2021 in an interinstitutional agreement. Among others, they agreed on the conditionality principle, whereby registration is a necessary precondition for lobbyists being able to carry out certain activities.
But as emerges from the audit, the agreement leaves scope for the institutions to apply it differently - despite the fact that the register is managed by a common secretariat - for example as regards which lobbying activities require registration, or how lobbyists can interact with the institutions’ members and staff.
“The EU transparency register must be bolstered so that it doesn’t turn into a paper tiger,” said Jorg Kristijan Petrovič, the Slovenian ECA member who led the audit, at a virtual press conference (16 April). He was a member of the court of audit of Slovenia before he was appointed to ECA in 2022.
“Although it provides useful information on lobbying, it’s not a silver bullet. A range of lobbying interactions with EU lawmakers can be hidden from the public eye, thus reducing transparency and affecting public trust.”
Changes after Qatarqate
Lobbyists can bypass the register for a range of interactions where they can still influence EU lawmakers and officials. A recent example is “Qatargate” in the Parliament. The NGO identified in the scandal was not registered, but had co-hosted a conference at the Parliament in June 2022.
The scandal led to a number of decisions in the way the Parliament implements the transparency register. The latest of them was taken last September, when the Parliament amended its Rules of Procedure to include a general requirement for all MEPs and their parliamentary assistants to publish scheduled meetings relating to parliamentary business with lobbyists registered in EUTR.
The Parliament has also adopted new measures regarding former MEPs, stipulating that they should wait until six months after the end of their European Parliament mandate before engaging in lobbying activities, and that they should register in the EUTR before doing so.
Does ECA consider that the changes are sufficient and meet the expectations after the audit? “These are steps in the right direction, closing some loopholes,” the audit team told The Brussels Times. “For example, the NGO implicated in Qatargate would have been obliged to register according to the new rules.”
Compliance with OECD rules?
The auditors compared the interinstitutional agreement with “OECD’s ten principles for transparency and integrity in lobbying” and found that it is broadly consistent with the principles. However, there are still significant shortcomings.
“Registration in EUTR does not cover all lobbying activities. It is up to the institutions to choose which of the activities covered by the agreement are included in their implementing decisions. It does not define the term 'lobbying' but provides an indicative list of lobbying activities; and enforcement measures to ensure that lobbyists comply with registration and information requirements are lacking.”
The auditors are especially critical of the fact that lobbyists must be registered only to meet the highest-ranking staff. They are not required to register to meet staff below director-general level, i.e. most staff. Furthermore, only pre-scheduled meetings are reported. A formal record does not need to be kept of spontaneous meetings, unscheduled phone calls, and email exchanges.
A major loophole in the agreement is also that that so-called third-party-funded NGOs are not obliged to disclose their funding sources by simply stating that they only represent their own interests or the collective interest of their members. This form of self-declaration is the case in a third of registered NGOs.
The register’s website has also significant drawbacks when it comes to providing sufficient information on key aspects of lobbying activities to allow for public scrutiny, and should be more user-friendly, according to the auditors.
They cross-checked the entire register and examined a risk-based sample of registered entities but did not extract a breakdown of all registrants by country and other variables. The website has been revamped during and after the audit. The list of suspended entities become visible on the webpage from March 2023 and recently the advance search has improved.
Mixed reaction to recommendations
The number of lobbyists listed in the EU transparency register has grown significantly since it was created, from around 5 500 in 2012 to roughly 12 500 in 2024. Annually, ca 1 000 are temporarily suspended for administrative reason but this seldom leads to any investigations. The register is voluntary and based on the interinstitutional agreement, which is not an enforceable legislative act.
The scope of the audit was limited to an assessment whether the register is fit for its purpose and to serve as an input to a planned EU review by July 2025. ECA did not assess whether a transparency register could be established and operated in ways other than through an interinstitutional agreement or if the task could be giving to an independent external body.
The European Ombudsman found examples of maladministration of the register in a recent report. ECA’s recommendations go in the same direction as the Ombudsman’s suggestions for improvements but also beyond them, ECA member Petrovič told The Brussels Times. The rules in place are not precise and express the common denominator of the three institutions.
To address this, ECA issued four recommendations (with sub-recommendations): Strengthen and harmonise the implementation of the EUTR framework; Publish information on nonscheduled meetings with lobbyists; Improve data quality checks; and Improve the user-friendliness and relevance of the transparency register’s public website.
The Commission claims in its reply that it and the other institutions are already working towards implementing several of ECA’s recommendations made by the ECA in its report but ECA does not completely agree. The three institutions have not accepted all recommendations or only accepted them partially. There is still room for improvement.
On the positive note, and as a late effect of a previous audit report, the Commission proposed last year the creation of an interinstitutional Ethics Body, covering members of EU institutions. With the establishment of the Ethics Body there will, for the first time, be common standards for ethical conduct “EU politicians will be subject to common, clear, transparent and comprehensible standards.”
The final steps are expected in early May once the proposal has been approved by all participating institutions, according to the Belgian EU Presidency.
M. Apelblat
The Brussels Times
