The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU) will today give evidence to a senior group of MEPs at a hearing(1) in the European Parliament. "A large number of Members of the European Parliament combine their position as an MEP with paid side-jobs that involve lobbying and raise 'conflict of interest' questions."
ALTER-EU welcomes the initiative to draft a statement of public service principles for EU civil servants. We agree that such a set of principles could help “promote good administration and make maladministration less likely to occur.”
The new lobby transparency register agreed today is a small step forward, ALTER-EU said today, but further steps are needed to make the new register effective and reliable.
Instead of introducing a clear cooling-off period of several years, the Commission decided on a notification period of only 18 months [...]. The new Code mentions a ban on lobbying [...], but unfortunately this appears to be insufficient to avoid conflicts of interest. The Code only covers issues falling within the ex-Commissioner's own portfolio.
