06-12-2024
The European Commission is introducing greater transparency in lobbying, responding to one of our long-standing demands.
What did we ask for?
In an open letter addressed to the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen in July 2024, together with Corporate Europe Observatory, LobbyControl and Transparency International EU, we stressed the need to implement and apply the rules of transparency necessary to govern European policy-making as one of its first official acts.
Our request seems to have been taken into account with these new decisions. In the letter we wrote: “The obligation to only meet with registered lobbyists should be expanded to all EU officials to increase compliance among lobbyists. Furthermore, proactively disclosing meetings with lobbyists should be expanded to include all officials down to heads of units.”
The new decisions
From now on, 1 500 officials, all occupying management functions within the EU Commission, will have to publish their lobbying meetings. In addition, they will no longer just have to publish the fact that a meeting has taken place, but will also have to add the main arguments put forward and the conclusions of the meetings in the form of minutes, in order to guarantee greater transparency.
Until now, this obligation only applied to European Commissioners, their cabinets and Directors-General, which corresponded to around 400 people.
Find out more about the European Commission’s two decisions below:
- Commission Decision (EU) 2024/3081 of 4 December 2024 on transparency measures concerning meetings held between Members of the Commission and interest representatives, and repealing Decision 2014/839/EU, Euratom
- Commission Decision (EU) 2024/3082 of 4 December 2024 on transparency measures concerning meetings held between Commission staff holding management functions and interest representatives, and repealing Decision 2014/838/EU, Euratom
At The Good Lobby we advocate for greater transparency and democracy in policy-making, and will continue to support and monitor these important developments.