ALTER EU Briefing on the Code of Conduct for Lobbyists Brussels, 18 April 2013 – As part of the two-year revision of the EU’s transparency register, Access Info and ALTER EU have called for a strengthening of the Code of Conduct for Lobbyists, which applies to all those listed in the register.
Brussels, 18 April 2013 – Current flaws in the Transparency Register: • Far too many major players missing. Although the number of registrants has increased, far too many active lobby players are still not on the list. Law firms involved in lobbying continue to evade disclosure.
Access Info Europe convocó una campaña de crowdfunding el 11 de enero de 2013 para recaudar los 3.000 euros que el Tribunal Supremo estableció en su condena costas por un caso que Access Info comenzó en 2007 para reclamar su derecho a conocer qué hace España para implementar medidas anticorrupción (ver todos los detalles del caso aquí). Durante esa campaña, Access Info consiguió superó con creces el dinero que pedía y recaudó un total de 10.630,84 €. 221 personas ingresaron su donación vía transferencia bancaria y 490 personas hicieron su donación vía Paypal. Es decir un total de 711 personas
On tuderechoasaber.es, a platform to submit online FOI request to Spanish institutions, it has become more and more common to see Spanish institutions answer access to information requests with links to online forms. This practice is inappropriate because it places unnecessary obstacles in the way of accessing information as well as being uncommon in other countries. ¿Why is it not recommended to use forms? Firstly, because international standards, such as the Council of Europe’s Convention on Access to Public Documents, establishes that to ask for information you should only have to indicate the necessary information in order for your request
• Access Info Europe and Fundación Ciudadana Civio present the report Tuderechoasaber.es 2012, which analyses the information requests sent to the institutions from this webpage. • Only 13% of the questions obtained requested information from the institutions (75 of 567). • The future Transparency Law is insufficient and will not improve access to information in practice Madrid, 9 April 2013 – One year after the entry into the political agenda of the Transparency Law (the draft was presented on March 26, 2012), and approaching the deadline to amend it in Congress, citizens still have not received appropriate attention from
Access Info Europe and The Global Detention Project Begin 33-Country Right to Information Investigation Geneva/Madrid – 14 March 2013 – Access Info Europe and the Global Detention Project have today submitted 66 information requests to 33 governments as part of an initiative aimed at improving transparency of immigration detention practices. The organisations have requested statistics regarding the numbers and types of detainees, as well as details about where people are detained for immigration-related reasons. Immigration detention is the deprivation of liberty of non-citizens for reason related to their residency status. It typically involves locking up asylum seekers and irregular immigrants
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