Euro-Just lobbies Council for Special Secrecy Exclusion Brussels, 12 April 2012 – A leaked document dated 12 April 2012 has revealed that EuroJust, the EU’s judicial cooperation body, attended the last Council meeting to argue for special language to exclude it from the future access to documents rules. According to the text passed to Access Info Europe, EuroJust is arguing that it is should only covered by Regulation 1049 when exercising administrative functions, and that all judicial documents be excluded from public access.

How to make a more transparent registration Brussels, 3 April 2012 – Members of the EU Civil Society Contact Group and ALTER-EU have decided to adopt higher standard of transparency than the inconsistent and insufficient requirements for registration in the “Transparency Register”. Our guidelines for registration set a constructive example of how the “Transparency Register” could be easily improved.

New ethical code too weak to prevent another ‘lobbygate’ Brussels, 20 March 2012 – Today marks the first anniversary of the ‘cash-for-amendments’ scandal, in which several Members of the European Parliament were exposed tabling legislative amendments in exchange for money. Ethics campaigners warn that the new code introduced following the scandal does not include all the safeguards necessary to prevent another ‘lobbygate’.

Commission urged to do more to tackle the Revolving Door Phenomenon Brussels, November 2011 – The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation has launched a new report which calls on the EU institutions to work more actively to block the “revolving door”, by which EU staff move from public sector positions to jobs in the private sector, and vice versa. ALTER EU’s major concern about the revolving door phenomenon is the potential for conflicts of interest to arise if ex-officials abuse the know-how, contacts or status acquired through their public sector jobs to provide their new employers or clients