Politico | 08/08/2017 English - A visit to Baku, Azerbaijan costing €75,000 was the most expensive trip made by a European commissioner in the first two months of 2016, according to travel expenses scrutinized by Belgian magazine Knack and published Wednesday. Read more...
El Confidencial | 02/08/2017 Spanish - Al igual que sus homólogos europeos, los diputados españoles van por libre en materia de transparencia. Ni las recomendaciones del Consejo de Transparencia, ni el ejemplo de otras instituciones como la oficina de la Marca España o el Consejo General del Poder Judicial (CGPJ), ni diversas solicitudes de información han valido para conocer en detalle cómo gasta cada una de sus 350 señorías los fondos públicos a su disposición. Read more...
Madrid/Brussels, 28 July 2017 – With upcoming negotiations on reforming the state of EU lobbying transparency imminent, the legal advice given to the Commission and Council on the legal basis for lobby reform is back under the spotlight following appeals this week to the EU Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly. Access Info Europe's and MEP Dennis de Jong's parallel complaints to the EU watchdog challenge the refusals by the two institutions to make transparent their legal advice on whether or not it’s possible under the EU Treaties to set up a mandatory EU lobby register with sanctions. “Civil society and MEPs are
Euronews | 27/07/2017 English - Transparency campaigners have slammed Brussels after a 1,178-day battle to find out how much EU chiefs spend on travel. Access Info Europe (AIE) wants to know how much Jean-Claude Juncker, Federica Mogherini and others spend on moving around for official business. Read more...
Madrid, 27 July 2017 – Access Info has described as extremely regrettable that six months after 120 European citizens requested access to last year’s travel expenses of the 28 EU Commissioners, the Commission has taken a unilateral decision to disclose data just for January and February 2016, and that it will not contemplate any greater transparency. Furthermore, in response to our letter to Vice President Timmermans proposing that this data be published proactively, the Commission has concluded that it “does not see added value in publishing online the detailed travel expenses” as the cost of processing the data “would be
Madrid, 21 July 2017 - Access Info Europe welcomed this week’s ruling from the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union, that the Commission cannot automatically refuse access to whole categories of documents in its possession. The Court confirmed that the EU institutions should always apply the EU’s access to documents rules to any documents they hold, regardless of the original authors. “Sometimes it’s important to confirm basic principles of this fundamental right, such as that if the Commission holds a document, it has to process a request, and there can never be automatic denials, no
[Post first published on the Open Government Partnership Blog] Helen Darbishire, Executive Director Zagreb, 20 July 2017 - “It’s really hard to have put a lot of effort into publishing a citizens’ budget and then to have only ten people click on it,” lamented one official in the Croatian Ministry of Finance. This is a classic challenge facing reformers inside government in many OGP countries, who need to be able to motivate their colleagues to organise data into open, accessible formats for public consumption. In spite of the controversy whirling outside about conflicts of interest in the relationship between
Nacional | 18/07/2017 Croatian / English translation - Nacional: Why did you come in Croatia this time? The first time you were in Zagreb was in 1993 during the difficult wartime. How much did Zagreb and Croatia change since then? Helen: I first came to Zagreb in December 2013 for a meeting of journalists, organized by the Council of Europe, to discuss the ethical challenges facing the media in the context of war. Read the English translation
Date: 17/07/2017 at 18.30h Place: Ateneu Barcelonès, sala Oriol Bohigas
Públic | 17/07/2017 Catalan - Catalunya en Comú ha començat la campanya 'Construïm en comú la Catalunya del futur', una série de debats que s'allargarà fins a l'octubre. Pisarello ha animat al públic "a fer fora al partit del 3%" i apostar per "alternatives progressistes". Read more...