Event | 03.09.2015

Transparent, clean, accountable

Lessons from international best practice for the EU institutions

RECORDED LIVESTREAM OF THE EVENT

70 percent of EU citizens believe the institutions of the Union to be corrupt. The European Commission’s first anti-corruption report puts the losses caused by bribery across Europe at EUR 120 billion per year. It is to be assumed that “corrupt” is understood by citizen also in the sense of political corruption, conflicts of interest, revolving doors and intransparent lobby influence. The European Parliament appointed Sven Giegold as rapporteur for an initiative report for transparency, integrity and accountability in the EU institutions. The time for progress is good: The Juncker commission started with a promise for more transparency and already started to meet only registered lobbyists and publish their lobby meetings. Commission and the European Parliament’s Bureau prepare together two new Interinstitutional Agreements on a better Lobby Transparency Register and on Better Law Making. The Parliament in the meantime discusses an overhall of Rules of Procedure including how to deal with conflicts of interests and their sanctioning.

We want to use this formal demand to the EU Commission for an EU law using hard rules to allow citizens new trust in our European Democracy. The initiative report can bring all those processes forward towards more transparency of lobbyism, of institutions themselves, an eben better fight against corruption. EU institutions are already comparatively transparent says Transparency International in a recent ranking of member state and European institutions. Yet to lead by example EU institutions have to incorporate international best practise. This conference will bring together the leading anti-corruption fighters from Romania, the tough checking experts on declarations of interest in France and staff from the Secretariat of the Canadian Lobby Transparency register that’s 9 times larger than the EU one.

To bring together experts, citizen and politicians we invite on 3rd September 2015, 15:00-17:00 to the European Parliament in Brussels

DRAFT PROGRAMME (TBC)

15.00-15.15

Welcome: Benedek Javor MEP (Green, Hungarian)

Panel 1 - Transparency towards citizens and on documents

15.15-16.00

Moderator: Max Anderson MEP (Greens/EFA, Sweden)

Sven Giegold MEP, rapporteur for the INI report on Transparency, Accountability and Integrity

Helen Darbishire, vice-president and executive director of Access Info Europe, Madrid, and represent for ALTER EU network

Tamás Bodoky, editor in chief of Átlátszó (atlatszo.hu investigates fraudulent spending of eu funds and runs an online freedom of information request generator service for the general public)

Sara Johannesson, Legal Counsellor at Permanent Representation of Sweden to the European Union

Panel 2 - Lobby transparency in the EU, US and Canada (incl. presentation of Greens/EFA lobby transparency initiative)

16.00-16.45

Moderator: Julia Reda MEP (Greens/EFA, Pirate Party, Germany)

Sven Giegold MEP, rapporteur for the INI report on Transparency, Accountability and Integrity

Bruce Bergen, Senior Legal Advisor to the Commissioner of Lobbying, Canada

Thomas Susman, American bar association (via live video from the US)

Daniel Freund, Transparency International (via video link from Kuala Lumpur)

Panel 3 - Avoiding conflicts of interest in the EU and in France

16.45-17.30

Moderator: Ulrike Lunacek, European Parliament vice-president (Greens/EFA, Austria) and Pascal Durand MEP (Greens/EFA, France)

Sven Giegold MEP, rapporteur for the INI report on Transparency, Accountability and Integrity

Élodie Cuerq, Responsable du pôle Communication & Relations institutionnelles d l’Haute Autorité pour la transparence de la vie publique

Martin Pigeon, Corporate Europe Observatory, Brussels, and represent for the ALTER EU network

Conclusion: Sven Giegold

Note:

"The agenda item "Opening: Manol Glishev, organiser of anti-corruption protests in Bulgaria" was cancelled after speaking on the phone about his Facebook-Postings (1) (2) and blog posts (3) (4) because we agreed some of his convictions contradict Green values e.g. on the use of violence in civilian political struggles."