The European Ombudsman opens an inquiry on Expert Groups

Publication date: 
Thursday, November 4, 2010

ALTER-EU has filed a complaint about the European Commission’s refusal to act against the fact that a number of its expert groups are dominated by business interests, alleging that this stance violates the Commission's codes of conduct on consultation standards and the use of expertise.

ALTER-EU believes the Commission should:

- Accept that industry-dominated groups do not comply with the rules and act accordingly

- Ban lobbyists and corporate executives sitting in expert groups in a “personal capacity”

- Introduce new selection criteria with safeguards against corporate capture

- Publish all documents related to the work of expert groups

You can find here the complaint text and its appendix as well as the questions put by the Ombudsman to the Commission:

Document types: