01 June 2016
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The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has adopted a resolution calling for transparency in EU institutions to be improved in a number of ways: ensuring full access to documents; joining the Council of Europe's anti-corruption body; and better tracking of lobbying efforts.
Resolution 2125 (2016): Transparency and openness in EU institutions (pdf)
Summary by PACE: Improving transparency in European institutions (link):
"While welcoming the measures recently taken by the EU institutions to improve its transparency and avoid conflicts of interest – in particular the new version of the Joint Transparency Register – PACE called for additional measures to ensure fair access to these institutions by all extra-institutional actors (interest and pressure groups, trade unions and consumer organisations) and to guarantee full access to their documents.
In adopting a resolution, based on the report by Nataša Vuckovic (Serbia, SOC), the Assembly also called on the EU to co-operate more closely with the Council of Europe, in particular by joining the Council of Europe’s anti-corruption body GRECO (Group of States against Corruption), and to sign up to the Convention on Access to Official Documents.
PACE also recommended that legislative footprints be published in order to track any input aimed at influencing EU legislation and policies, and that the Joint Transparency Register be further improved by expanding it to all EU institutions. The European Ombudsman’s recommendations on transparency should also be implemented.
Finally the Assembly recommended that the Committee of Ministers finalise its legal instrument on the regulation of lobbying activities and consider the need to take measures to regulate the activities of extra-institutional actors in the Council of Europe."
A recent European Parliament study examines the issues of openness, transparency and access to documents in depth. See: Openness, Transparency and the Right of Access to Documents in the EU (pdf)
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