Date:
3rd September 2015, 15:00-17:00
Location:
European Parliament, Brussels

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 citizens also in the sense of political corruption, conflicts of interest, revolving doors and non-transparent lobby influence. The European Parliament appointed Sven Giegold as rapporteur for an initiative report on 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 has already started to only meet registered lobbyists and publish their lobby meetings. The Commission and the European Parliament’s Bureau prepare two new Interinstitutional Agreements together on a better Lobby Transparency Register and on Better Law Making. The Parliament in the meantime is discussing 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 give citizens new trust in our European Democracy. The initiative report can bring all those processes forward towards more transparency in lobbyism, in institutions themselves, an even 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 practices. 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, which is 9 times larger than the EU one.

To invite experts, citizens and politicians to get together on 3rd September 2015, 15:00-17:00 at the European Parliament in Brussels. Please REGISTER HERE: http://www.greens-efa.eu/index.php?id=687

You can find the full programme here