Toespraak Commissaris Kallas van Siim over transparantie (en)

European Parliament, 8 September 2009

Ladies and Gentlemen,

First, let me congratulate the European Voice for organising this conference. Also, today's event has seven corporate sponsors, all of them duly registered in the Commission Register for Interest Representatives. Thank you for that. This morning, I intend to give you my personal assessment of the achievements so far, and what I think should be changed to improve the register.

What has been achieved so far?

The register is a success. More than 1840 organisations are registered. We're here discussing "how" – rather than "whether" – we can achieve greater transparency. I will not repeat all the philosophical arguments. On a practical level, the register works as intended. Registrants are automatically alerted to public consultations in their field of interest. This helps to spreads transparency well beyond the Brussels' microcosm. It makes consultations more open and inclusive. It builds public trust by inviting reinforced participation and scrutiny by third parties.

I'm also pleased with the impact of the register on the Commission's corporate culture. Commission staff has been asked to promote the register. They have been advised to ask interest representatives to register. If they don't, the line is that staff should think twice about taking a meeting and, if they do meet, to record what happened.

Obviously, it takes time for old working habits to change. I'm not saying all 25,000 officials are now active users of the register. But I do see clear indicators of progress:

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  Staff has received information and training about the register, and how to use it.
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  Formal consultations on Green and White papers adopted by the Commission over the past year called for registration, stating our policy that contributions from un-registered stakeholders would be treated as "individual".
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  DGs are using the register. For instance, the Trade DG decided to drop all un-registered organisations from their "Civil Society Database", and the Agriculture DG took similar steps to make registration a condition for participation in structured and permanent consultations. Other DGs with wide civil society contacts, such as DG EAC or DG Sanco, have discussed with their stakeholder groups and recommended registration.

So I think the register has become a working tool for the Commission services, contributing to fairness and balance in our consultations.

Furthermore, the register was intended to deflect mud-slinging against legitimate interest representatives towards a fair and credible complaints procedure. This has, in my view, worked as intended. Eleven complaints have been filed over the past year, out of which five were considered sufficiently substantiated to justify an administrative inquiry. Of these, three are still pending; one registrant was suspended [CEFIC], and one [BusinessEurope] gave a convincing explanation, allowing us to close the investigation without further follow-up. We will continue to suspend disingenuous registrants. But I recall that this is not an accreditation system. Although there are a few "exotic" entries, I do not wish to preclude smaller stakeholders from benefitting from the "incentives" of the register, such as getting automatic alerts.

My overall assessment is that the lobby profession has collaborated well. Registrants have made considerable efforts to supply the information required, and to keep it updated. Some stakeholders have noted a change of culture within their profession. All registrants have pledged to respect a common code of conduct, setting the first-ever agreed European benchmark for legitimate lobbying. The principles may be pretty straightforward, but it does strengthen your resolve when you make a public commitment to respect them.

I wish to thank all those who have contributed to making the voluntary approach a success. I hope to be able to count on their support as we come to the issue of necessary changes. Let me now turn to these:

Necessary changes

Of course, we are not complacent. On several points, the register is not working as intended. This is quite normal for such a pioneering attempt to regulate lobbying in Europe. We should learn from this and implement improvements in the next version. First of all, while the total number of registrants far exceeds my personal expectations, coverage is insufficient in certain categories. Some major think tanks and lobbying law firms are effectively boycotting the register.

With regard to think tanks, I remain convinced that their inclusion in the target group was justified. I've listened carefully to their representatives. I've made it clear that the register is for "interest representatives", and that joining the register does not label think tanks as "lobbyists". And I do not question the quality and independence of their research. But, really, it is plainly obvious that in some cases, the "events" programme is directly linked to who the corporate funding sources are. Some even advertise on their website that corporate sponsors are ensured privileged access to key decision-makers, including commissioners, and EC officials of all ranks. It happens every day in this city, and such indirect interest representation is quite common around the world. I call on the think tanks, especially those we support financially, to recognise that they're not – after all – universities. And we, commissioners and corporate sponsors, are not attending their events as "visiting fellows".

Law firms are another problem area. After meetings and correspondence with the bar associations, I have received very few constructive proposals on how to address the deontological problem. I remain convinced that practical solutions can be found if the will is there, and I'm prepared to continue the dialogue. In the meantime, the law firms retain an unfair competitive advantage vis-à-vis the public affairs consultancies in attracting clients that wish their lobbying to remain secret. I will be looking to collaboration with the European Parliament to reduce this distortion in the future joint register.

I now come to financial disclosure. There's a general demand for better guidance on the scope of eligible activities. I find it essential to stick to our current approach that the "intention to influence" is the guiding principle. But I understand that there's been confusion about whether to declare only "direct" lobbying – face-to-face contact with a representative of an EU institution – or whether also to include lobbying conducted via the increasingly preferred indirect means such as think tanks, trade associations, "platforms", "forums" and "campaigns". So we need to clarify this.

During the pilot phase, we have also given professional consultancies a choice between absolutes and percentage bands to declare their income from individual clients. I think this has led to unintended unequal treatment, requiring the smaller firms to reveal more than the larger ones. I believe we should ensure more meaningful transparency and better comparability of data by clarifying the format a little bit.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I did not propose a register for the sake of having a register. The purpose remains to dispel any suspicion that EU decisions are made in anything else than the overall common European interest. The register exists in order to inform the public who is investing time and resources in shaping our perception of this common European interest. I will therefore continue to strive for a voluntary register that offers additional transparency with reliable and meaningful information. I truly hope that you will all continue to contribute to advance this common European interest.

So far, the European Parliament and the majority of interest representatives have strongly supported the overall objective. The Council is still not involved, but the Swedish presidency is open for discussion.

Does this mean everything will be done and dusted with this review? Does it mean that after the full and successful implementation of the European Transparency Initiative during this mandate period, the Commission can lean back and relax? I think you know that the answer is "no". The "search for integrity and accountability", as the European Voice aptly called it in last week's paper, never ends. There are a lot of other things the new Commission and my successor could do.

Thank you for your attention.