The EU Civil Society Contact Group and ALTER-EU criticise the “Transparency Register” as fundamentally flawed because it is not mandatory, it does not require organisations to register all individual lobbyists who work for them, and because the required financial reporting on lobbying expenditure is inconsistent and not comparable.

The Staff Regulations contain the ethics rules which govern 55,000 or more officials who work across the EU institutions. ALTER-EU considers that the current process to reform the Staff Regulations provides an opportunity to improve these ethics rules, especially those that relate to conflicts of interest during and after EU staff work for the EU.

When EU institution staff members leave public service and become lobbyists, conflicts of interest may arise that can damage the integrity of the public policy-making process and the reputation of the European institutions.