Complaint to EU lobby transparency register
As the founders and coordinators of LobbyFacts, which holds and publishes an archive of EU lobby transparency data going back to 2012, Corporate Europe Observatory and LobbyControl have written to complain about hundreds of instances of implausible data in the current EU lobby transparency register. Such implausible data is a breach of the register’s Code of Conduct and means that the register is still some way off from providing fully reliable insights into the lobbying of the EU institutions. All data correct as of 18 September 2022.
The complaint can be found here.
The data can be found here.
For more infomation, check out LobbyFacts.
UPDATE: 5 October 2022
The Secretariat of the EU lobby transparency register has now replied to the above complaint. The letter says, amongst other information:
"I would like to thank you for your effort in compiling that information, which the Secretariat will examine as a matter of priority. The Secretariat will contact the registrants concerned in the context of its ongoing monitoring exercise and will duly inform you about the outcome ... Let me take this opportunity to thank again Corporate Europe Observatory and LobbyControl for their constructive submissions as well as for your genuine interest in the Transparency Register and for using it as a key reference tool to support your lobby monitoring activities."
UPDATE: 25 January 2023
The Secretariat of the EU lobby transparency register has now provided a full reply to the above complaint. The letter says that, of these 430 or so entries:
"The overall result shows the importance of this monitoring exercise, since only 3% were correct from the outset and, whilst in 59% of total cases the registrant provided a satisfactory update, 38% were removed from the register."
This is pretty damning! We have urged the Secretariat to use LobbyFacts to identify further dodgy data.
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