Transparency organizations call on EU Commission President to improve work to protect democracy

Brussels – The transparency organizations Corporate Europe Observatory, LobbyControl, Transparency International EU, and The Good Lobby have demanded European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen finally recognize the threat to EU democracy, and properly implement and enforce the transparency rules needed to govern European policymaking, as one of her first official acts.

In their open letter to the President, they state: “European democracy is in distress. From outside the EU, authoritarian states are aiming to destabilize the EU institutions. Far-right parties with an authoritarian agenda now hold a quarter of the seats in the European Parliament. At the same time, lobbyists with questionable intentions benefit from the poorly enforced EU lobbying rules.”

Scandals such as Qatargate have made it abundantly clear that Europe is not adequately armed against such undue influence, the organizations state. “The EU Transparency Register not only continues to contain major loopholes, but lack of monitoring, resources, and enforcement in fact render it unfit to identify undue influence on the political process,” they aid. Ursula von der Leyen “must finally deliver on this as soon as her cabinet is in place.”

Only with stringent and enforced lobbying rules can the EU protect itself from dubious attempts to influence its decisions unduly, the organizations say. “The Commission must finally step up to this task. Its newly-created ethics body, which is tasked with creating an ethics framework for nine EU institutions, must have the necessary resources and powers to monitor and enforce these rules.”