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EU lobbying - it's now or never
Erik Wesselius, member of the ALTER-EU steering committee
DATELINE: 21/4/08
Three years after the start of the ALTER-EU campaign, we have now reached the moment of truth: the coming two-month period will decide whether any real and lasting results will be achieved in our struggle for mandatory EU lobbying transparency and ethics rules. Therefore, active participation of the full ALTER-EU network in the next weeks is crucial!
European Parliament
During its Brussels plenary session in early May, the European Parliament will debate (7 May) and vote (8 May) on the "Report on the development of the framework for the activities of interest representatives (lobbyists) in the European institutions" (2007/2115(INI). For more information on the process in the EP, see our transparency wikipage http://transparency.wikidot.com.
The final report as it was approved by the Constitutional Affairs Committee on 1 April, was much better than earlier drafts. It now calls clearly for a mandatory lobbying transparency register, including names and full financial disclosure. However, the report still has some serious weak points that must be improved in Plenary. Full financial disclosure needs to be defined more explicitly - our proposal is to ask for 'fair estimates' of annual lobbying income or expenditure rounded off to the nearest 10,000 euro. Secondly, the report should set a much more ambitious target date for agreement on a mandatory interinstitutional lobbying transparency register. Finally, ALTER-EU calls on the Parliament to make some immediate improvements to its own rules on lobbying transparency and ethics, in order to bridge the period before the interinstitutional register will be operational.
ALTER-EU plans
The ALTER-EU Steering Committee will prepare a draft letter that ALTER-EU member groups can translate and/or use to send to selected MEPs in the first days of May. The letter will stress the importance of effective lobbying transparency and ethics rules for democracy in the EU, indicate which amendments we consider as pro-transparency and announce that we plan to publish the voting behaviour of individual MEPs or political groups, ranking them on a scale indicating their commitment to lobbying transparency.
Any publicity you can do on the issue and the upcoming vote in the Parliament, will further help to make MEPs understand that this is a major political issue and that they are being watched.
Commission register
After the vote in Parliament the next milestone will be the launch of the Commission's lobbying transparency register, which is expected in June. We want to step up our efforts to ensure that the register (which will unfortunately be voluntary) will contain names of individual lobbyists (in February the Commission suddenly announced names of lobbyists will not be in) and that the financial information in the register will be meaningful and comparable (all figures rounded off to the nearest 10,000 €).
Again publicity will be key and all ALTER-EU member groups can help with that, for instance by issuing press releases, writing op-eds and so on. We also want to mount pressure on the Commission through a cyberaction targeting the email boxes of one or two key persons in the Commission. Shortly we will also have a new cartoon available, ridiculising a lobbying transparency register without lobbyists names.
We would be very grateful for any action you can take, large or small, to add to the political pressure on MEPs and the Commission!
In the next weeks, please watch your mailbox for sample letters and instructions for the cyberaction.
Last modified: Friday, May 30, 2008
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Events & Announcements
World Press Freedom Day
More reporters are currently imprisoned in Turkey than in any other country in the world. Only a matter of weeks ago lawyers failed to persuade a Turkish court to release a 76-year-old journalist from a Turkish internet news station.
World Press Freedom Day on Friday May 3, 2013 is being marked in Britain by a rally to highlight the dangers facing journalists in Turkey and in this podcast, Nicholas Jones speaks to Barry White, Organiser at the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and Sam Bamford, the TUC's policy officer for Eastern Europe and Africa about the importance of a campaign to highlight international press freedom.
The World Press Freedom Day rally is being staged by the National Union of Journalists at the NUJ head office, Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1 on Thursday May 2, 6pm-8pm.
DATELINE: 27/4/13
UK launch of EU media campaign
DATELINE: 13/3/13
The UK launch of a 'European Citizens' Initiative' calling for EU rules against concentration of media power will take place on Thursday March 21 from 11:00am – 12:30pm in Committee Room 4A at the House of Lords, London. Guest speakers will include actor and activist Hugh Grant (pictured), media consultant Claire Enders, Professor Steven Barnett, Barry McCall (President of the NUJ) and Marc Gruber (Director of the European Federation of Journalists).
A European Citizens' Initiative is an official petition, like a Downing Street petition. If it succeeds in gathering a million signatures across the EU, the Commission is obliged to respond.
This petition calls for the EU to act to protect media pluralism and press freedom.
CPBF Annual General Meeting
DATELINE: 1/3/13
Make a note in your diary
Saturday 13 July 2013 from 10.00am
NUJ HQ, 308/312 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1.
Leveson, media ownership, CPBF future work.
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DATELINE: 26/3/10
Download Freepress in PDF, ePub or mobi format. Issue 194 now available.
MEDIA FOR ALL CONFERENCE
DATELINE: 26/3/10
Papers from the Media for All Conference
MEDIA MANIFESTO
DATELINE: 26/3/10
The media’s job is to inform and entertain us but we rely on them too to tell us what our rulers and representatives are up to. In the run-up to the Iraq war the government used spin and disinformation in the media to create panic and mislead people. The truth is coming out now, but we need stronger, more independent media to be able to scrutinise governments and make informed choices.
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