Brussels – Italy is a transparent country — at least in Brussels, in its Representation to the European Union office, led by Ambassador Vincenzo Celeste. Civil Society Europe, the coordinating association of European civil society organizations, confirms this in a comprehensive analysis of the transparency level of all Permanent Representations to the European Union based on publicly available data on their websites. The study, available since 2023, aims to identify improvements or worsening transparency in all Permanent Representations.
According to the 2025 Report, only six Permanent Representations (Croatia, Finland, Italy, Portugal, Romania, and Sweden) have all information available and regularly updated on their websites. Eight (Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain) make most of the information available. Five (Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Luxembourg) publish only some staff contact details but not the transparency register.
Going down the list, Civil Society Europe found that six permanent representations (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, and the Netherlands) disclose only a few names and contact details of their staff. However, some of them have updated transparency registers. Lastly, the permanent representations of Bulgaria and Ireland do not make the list of meetings with interested representatives public, nor do they provide any contact details of civil servants.
Member States’ Permanent Representations to the European Union serve as the official link between national governments and the EU institutions. In particular, the Permanent Representatives participate in meetings of the Council of the EU and its preparatory bodies (committees and working groups), notably COREPER (Committee of Permanent Representatives, which prepares the decisions of the Council of the EU, one of the co-legislators together with the European Parliament.
The Permanent Representations have, therefore, a paramount role in shaping EU policies. As such, a high degree of transparency should be expected, the disclosure of information relevant to the public being a key element of institutional accountability,” the report stresses.
This includes giving Civil Society Organizations the opportunity to engage in fruitful discussions with Ambassadors and civil servants as part of the Treaties requirement to “maintain an open, structured and regular dialogue with civil society and representative associations (of citizens)” (art. 11 TFEU).
In addition, Permanent Representations should keep a public record of high-level exchange of views to allow public scrutiny of the different actors aiming to influence the policy making process, with the aim of also ensuring a balance between the different interests and that the concerns of citizens are adequately heard. While the Permanent Representations to the European Union do not have specific disclosure obligations, transparency of the institutions is mandated by the Treaties of the EU (art. 15 TFEU), while the right of access to documents from the institutions is enshrined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (art. 42).
According to the study, “Over half of the Permanent Representations publish a list of the meetings held between the Ambassador Permanent Representative and/or the Ambassador Deputy Permanent Representative and stakeholders of different kinds (business, trade unions, civil society organizations, etc…). However, in several cases, this list has not been updated for months or even years.”
According to Civil Society Europe, “The timely updating of the transparency register is of vital importance for making this tool really useful, allowing all interest representatives and the general public to monitor the recent exchanges that occurred around specific policy developments.”
In the analysis, transparency registers were considered up-to-date if they included meetings held in the past six months. Only 10 Permanent Representations out of 27 have a transparency register that has been updated at least once in the last six months. The study reveals that the Italian representation does so every month.
The 2024-2025 update of CSE’s analysis shows that the transparency of the different Permanent Representations is considerably uneven, with practices ranging from full disclosure to no information at all made publicly available.
When sharing the preliminary analysis outcome with them, some of the replies received from the Permanent Representations “pointed out the need of safeguarding staff privacy as a reason not to disclose information such as names, areas of responsibility, or contact details.” However, “While understanding concerns about security,” Civil Society Europe believes that it is possible to strike a different kind of balance between the duty of protection towards staff and the commitment to high standards of institutional accountability, as shown by those Permanent Representations who opted for a high level of disclosure of the information covered in this analysis (such as the Italian one).
Civil Society Europe, therefore, proposes four recommendations to improve the transparency of the member states’ Permanent Representations:
1) To fully disclose all civil servants’ names and contact details, providing clear indications about their roles and policy areas of responsibility.
2) To make the direct email addresses visible for each civil servant rather than generic email formats or contact forms.
3) To publish the list of meetings between the Ambassadors and interest representatives and update it at most every two months.
4) To increase the visibility and accessibility of such a list by making it available through a direct link on the homepage or main menu of the Permanent Representations websites.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
