Researching corporate lobbying in the EU

Sources on EU lobbying and EU policy-making

• LobbyFacts is run by Corporate Europe Observatory and LobbyControl and it takes data from the official (Commission/Parliament/Council) register and allows it to be filtered, ranked, sorted, and analysed. Lobby register data dating back to 2012 is available in its unique archive
• Integritywatch is run by Transparency International’s EU office and it takes data from MEPs' declarations of interest, MEPs' published meetings, and the published lists of lobby meetings held by Commissioners, cabinet members, and Directors-General
• Parltrack is a European initiative to improve the transparency of legislative processes. It combines information on dossiers, representatives, vote results and committee agendas into a database and allows the tracking of dossiers using email and RSS
• Lobbypedia is run by LobbyControl (in German) to highlight the influence of lobbyism on politics and the public
• AsktheEU was built by the organisation Access Info Europe to help members of the public get information about the EU. You can submit access to documents requests and view those made by others
• Powerbase is published by Public Interest Investigations and is a guide to networks of power, lobbying, and deceptive PR
• Open Security Data Europe is a public platform aimed at tracking and displaying how EU spends money on security-related projects, including policing, border control, counter-terrorism, cybersecurity, and weapons
• SEMDOC is published by Statewatch and provides monitoring of EU Justice and Home Affairs policy
• Farmsubsidy.org provides information on how EU farming subsidies are spent

Official EU sources

• EU lobby transparency register is run by the Commission, Parliament and Council. As the register is not legally-binding, its data is imperfect
• Commission's rules on 'ethics and good administration'
• Register of Commission's expert groups
• Commission’s SINAPSE platform which promotes expertise in EU policy making and governance
• Register of Comitology procedures when the Commission implements EU legislation with committees of representatives from EU member states
• All Commission press releases
• Register of Commission documents
• Register of weekly College minutes
• Who is Who database which can help you to track down an individual working in the EU institutions
• Register of European Union law including the treaties, legislation, case-law and legislative proposals, plus extensive search facilities
• Documents and other information concerning ongoing and closed public consultations by the Commission
• The budgets of the EU institutions
• Information on public contracts and funding programmes managed by the Commission
• Register of European Court of Justice cases
• The Legislative Observatory which tracks the progress of legislation
• In the European Parliament, you can monitor parliamentary questions and check the Parliament’s calendar

Sources on EU member state lobbying

• Irish lobby register
• German lobby register
• French lobby register
• Austrian lobby register
• Transparency International also runs IntegrityWatch sites for Latvia, France, Greece, Netherlands, UK, Spain, Lithuania, Italy, Slovenia

Sources on US lobbying

• OpenSecrets.org is run by the Center for Responsive Politics and presents analysis of news, parties, elected members, candidates, as well as disclosing how much campaign money has been raised and where it comes from. It also analyses the lobby spending of registered lobby organisations
• SourceWatch is published by the Center for Media and Democracy and it provides analysis of US corporate public relations (PR) campaigns, including corporate front groups
• Gulliver is a database run by Corpwatch which enables users to find details of corporate crimes anywhere in the world - and how communities are organising to hold these companies accountable. Also check out Violation Tracker by Good Jobs First in the US
• FARA is the Foreign Agents Registration Act with semi-annual reports published by the Department of Justice