Articles

Potential conflicts of interest continue to plague the European Parliament one year after elections, finds new research released today.

Today, the European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee voted on a report by French conservative MEP Constance Le Grip on the Commission's proposal for a directive protecting so-called “trade secrets”.

The European Commission has finally responded to the Ombudsman investigation into its advisory groups, but the answer is a serious anti-climax and puts a big question mark over Vice-President for Transparency Frans Timmermans' commitment to tackling excessive industry influence within these groups.

Crispr/Cas9, oligodirected mutagenesis, zinc finger nuclease… Those names are a few of a longer list of new techniques of biotechnologies (NTB) for which the European Union is still to decide whether their products are falling under the scope of the EU GMO legislation or not. After having consulted with scientists experts, legal services and some member states, the European Commission has promised it will release a document before the end of 2015. If any were expecting this document to be discussed with the European Parliament and all the Member states, they had it wrong as the European

While large energy companies are quick to spend heavily on lavish conferences, they are much less forthcoming when it comes to transparency of their lobby activities. This article looks at some of the most important energy companies lobbying the EU and tracks their disclosures in the EU’s voluntary lobby transparency register in 2013 and 2014.

An investigation led by research and campaign group Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) and journalist Stéphane Horel exposes corporate lobby groups mobilising to stop the EU taking action on hormone (endocrine) disrupting chemicals (EDCs). The report sheds light on how corporations and their lobby groups have used numerous tactics from the corporate lobbying playbook: scaremongering, evidence-discrediting, and delaying tactics as well as the ongoing TTIP negotiations as a leverage.

Group aims to closely follow the developments on Better Regulation and the initiatives and actions from the Commission, Parliament and Member States in this area.

Corporate Europe Observatory and Friends of the Earth Europe have today written to the Secretary General of the European Commission, Catherine Day, to complain about the industry domination of the European Science and Technology Network on Unconventional Hydrocarbon Extraction.

After many months of suspense, the European Commission annouced today that it was going to create a new "High Level Advisory Group of Eminent scientists" to replace the now defunct Chief Scientific Advisor to the President of the European Commission. Little is known yet about the proposal, but here are some comments.