Brussels Sunshine

After the intense debate and media attention in the first weeks after the European Parliament's cash-for-amendments scandal broke, it has become very quiet in the last weeks. Discussions about transparency and ethics reforms in the wake of the scandal take place in secrecy in a working group of ten MEPs, led by Parliament President Buzek, in weekly meetings behind closed doors.

I just started work at Corporate Europe Observatory last week as Lobbycracy campaigner. The complex and secret world of the EU institutions is not new to me: afterall I used to work on European trade policy so I'm used to seeing untransparency in action and how corporate lobby interests dominate the thinking of EU institutions.

Former internal market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy waited just one week after the requirement that he informed the Commission of his professional activities expired, before he signed a contract to join the board of a bank.

New rules needed to curb power of corporate lobbyists in the European Parliament

On March 7, MEPs in the Parliament's economic affairs committee voted down the vast majority of the amendments inspired by the derivatives industry. This was thanks to the compromise amendments proposed by the rapporteur Pascal Canfin.The MEPs proposed specific measures to stop the irresponsible practice of trading naked sovereign debt instruments (including CDS) opposing what was proposed by the Federation of European Securities Exchanges and other lobby groups linked with the derivatives industry.

On March 7, the European Parliament's economic affairs committee will vote on amendments to the Commission's proposals to regulate one of the most controversial derivative financial products, Credit Default Swaps. The London MEP Syed Kamall (European Conservative and Reformist group) has tabled 14 amendments that are identical to those tabled by Swedish MEP Olle Schmidt (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) or have the same result in the legislation and/or the same explanation text (ten identical and four almost identical ones). [1]

MEPs from all sides of the political spectrum last week attacked the Commission's failure to act against the industry dominance of many of its advisory bodies, the so-called expert groups. The Commission came under fierce criticism from more than 15 MEPs who took to the floor during a debate in the European Parliament’s plenary hall, demanding solutions to the expert group problem and insisting that Parliament should be involved in the decision making process.

A survey done by an intern at Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) has thrown new light on the relations between Danish MEPs and lobbyists. Jacob Hoedeman wrote to Danish MEPs during his internship, asking them for a list of meetings they had had with lobbyists in the last two months of 2010.

The European Commission’s decision earlier this month to approve ex-Commissioner Günter Verheugen’s setting up of his own lobby consultancy firm went against the advice of the Commission’s own ethics committee. Internal documents reveal a complete lack of stringency in the approvals procedure. This underlines the urgent need to tighten the Commission’s ethics rules well beyond what is proposed in the new draft Code of Conduct for Commissioners.

To what extent will a right-wing French MP sympathetic to big business and French government's ongoing manoeuvres to create a "corporate confidentiality" label endanger critical reporting on corporations and business transparency?

Ex-commissioner Günter Verheugen is not the only Commission official who just ignored the rules about seeking approval for a new job ( Verheugen failed to inform the Commission of his new lobby consultancy firm, the European Experience Company).

Sweden is known as a global leader in transparency, but among centre-right Swedish MEPs there’s very little enthusiasm for being open about their contacts with lobbyists, as a survey published on europaportalen.se found.