Friends of the Earth (FOE) and Access Info Europe unite to enforce compliance with European legislation Madrid, 14th of March 2013 – FOE and Access Info Europe have lodged an appeal to the Ministry of agriculture, food and environment demanding that it complies with European standards of transparency and that it publish the exact data about the location of the fields of commercial genetically modified (GM) crops. The appeal challenges the lack of information given by the Ministry in response to a request submitted on 17 December 2012 (available at tuderechoasaber.es). The request called for

Madrid, 13 March 2013 – It’s been 228 days since Spain’s transparency law entered the national parliament (Congress) and since then there has been no information about the current state of the law, although we do know that the deadline for presenting amendments has been amended no less then twenty (20) times. The Constitutional Commission which has been given responsibity to consider the draft has not published a timetable nor has announced if there will be more hearings on the law: to date eight “experts” have been invited to speak to the parliamentarians (one of them stated in his intervention

Madrid, 12 March 2013 — Spain’s Ombudsman (Defensor del Pueblo) has severely criticised the secrecy of the Madrid regional government (Community of Madrid), the regional government of Madrid, in regards to the macro project Eurovegas and demands total transparency on this topic. The Ombudsman has singled out this project as one of “exceptional public interest”, therefore the Community of Madrid needs to be transparent regarding how much they know about the future leisure centre, and must inform interested parties.Since the intention to build Eurovegas in Madrid came to light, the Plataform Eurovegas No (the Platform) has made 12 requests to

Madrid, 27 February 2013 – The picture says it all: a government embattled by corruption scandals is so reluctant to answer questions that it puts journalists in a separate room during a press conference. This happened on 2 February 2013 for a press conference given by Spanish premier Mariano Rajoy. The objective was to avoid being put on the spot by uncomfortable questions about the governing Popular Party’s finances. It’s sometimes hard to follow what is going on in Spain: The leading political party and even the royal household are embroiled in corruption scandals. In response, everyone is talking about

De aprobarse con su contenido actual, es papel mojado Madrid 19 de febrero de 2013 – La Coalición Pro Acceso, que reúne a 65 organizaciones, hace un llamamiento a realizar una mejora integral al proyecto de ley de transparencia ya que, de aprobarse como está, perpetuará la opacidad que rige la vida pública española. De esta manera, se exige que no se excluya del debate a una sociedad civil que lleva desde 2006 divulgando sus planteamientos de manera estructurada.

Madrid, 31 January 2013 — In the midst of a major scandal involving possible irregular payments to leading members of Spain’s governing party using money from major companies, a European opinion poll conducted just a few days ago reveals that 82% of Spaniards believe that lobbying from the business sector may lead to government policies which are not in the public interest. Also conducted in Austria, France, the Netherlands, the UK and the Czech Republic, the survey asked about the influence and regulation of lobbying in Europe. In response to this poll, 80% of Spaniards said that they believed that lobbyists

Madrid, 31 de enero 2013 — La organización Access Info Europe y la Fundación Ciudadana Civio, impulsoras del proyecto tuderechoasaber.es, enviaron una carta a Valentín Elizondo Nevares, Director General de Gobierno Abierto y Nuevas Tecnologías de Navarra, para expresar su preocupación por el retroceso que supone la Ley Floral de Transparencia y Gobierno Abierto recién adoptada.

Madrid, 11 February 2013- Three weeks ago, Access Info Europe and Tuderechoasaber.es platform jointly launched a petition on Change.org to demand that political parties be included in future Transparency Law which has already exceeded 160,000 signatures. Members of various political groups have recently stated to media that are in favor of including political parties in the future Transparency Law. Carlos Floriano, Deputy Secretary of Organization of PP, Elena Valenciano, Deputy Secretary General of the PSOE, Irene Lozano, national representative of Union Progress and Democracy (UPyD) and even the Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria, declared to be agree, among

Madrid, 30 January 2013 — A massive public response to Access Info’s January fundraising campaign brought in a little over €10,000 in mostly modest donations from members of the public. A big “Thank You” from the Access Info Europe team!