A study published by ALTER-EU has analyzed DG FISMA’s meeting with lobbyists. The study points out 3 alarming practices that run counter the transparency rules.
Only 16% of the meetings held by DG FISMA with lobbyists are published
In fact, only the Commissioner and the Director General are obliged to proactively publish these meetings with lobbyists. The rules do not oblige the proactive publication of data for meetings with lower officials, despite these constituting 81% of all DG FISMA lobby meetings.
That shows the need to broaden Junker’s transparency measures beyond the high officials, since it is not the Commissioner or Director general who drafts EU legislation proposals.
Up to 92% of the meetings were with corporate interests
According to the same study on lobby meetings with DG FISMA, officials who have proactively publish their meetings have held 91% of them with corporate interest. For officials who are not covered by Junker’s proactive transparency rules, 92% of their meetings were with corporate interests. Those figures show that DG FISMA is subject almost exclusively to corporate interests.
1 in 8 lobby meetings were organizations that should have been registered
The study also highlights an alarming tendency: 1 in 8 lobby meetings with both high and lower level DG FISMA officials from January to July 2016 were organizations that should have been registered in the EU Transparency register.
ALTER-EU has listed 68 meetings which were held between lower officials and lobbyists for which at least one of the organizations participating was not registered in the EU Transparency Register. The study also reveals that for some meetings, the unregistered organizations avoid those transparency rules by attending with a lobby consultancy that is registered in the EU Transparency register.
ALTER-EU reveals in its study that out of 519 meetings held by DG FISMA, 81% were not published. This is explained by the fact that up to 83% of lobby meetings discussing financial services are held with EU officials who are not covered by the transparency rules (Junker’s proactive transparency rules).
Read the ALTER-EU study here