100 posts
ACTA: Nu har det blivit åka av
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Det händer osannolikt mycket runt ACTA just nu. Jag försöker samla lite länkar. Stora demonstrationer i Polen mot ACTA. Nyheter24: Kravaller i Polen – men i Sverige är det locket på BBC: Thousands march in Poland over Acta internet treaty...
Waiting six months for one document from the EU Commission
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On 30 July 2011, I requested a meeting protocol of the Chefs de Cabinets of the European Commission. On 12 August , the Secretariat General of the EU Commission refused any access, not even to parts of the document. I went into appeal, and on 6 Septe...
Wie niets te verbergen heeft….
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Ik kijk reikhalzend uit naar de zomer van 2012. Dan verwacht ik de uitspraak van de rechter over het openbaar maken van een EU document….dat ik in de zomer van 2009 heb aangevraagd. Drie hele jaren voor het boven water krijgen van een juridisch stu...
EU and eurozone transparency: DIY
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Transparency moves in a mysterious way in the European Union. As far as I have been able to ascertain, the president of the European Council and of the Euro Summits, Herman Van Rompuy, has not published his interim report on improving economic union.
My complaint to the EU Ombudsman: Complaint procedure has started
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After having telephoned with the official responsible at the EU Ombudsman for my complaint against the EU Commission, today I have received the following confirmation from the Ombudsman’s office: “Dear Mr Patz, On 9 November 2011, you su...
EU Ecofin set European Semester in motion
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Ronny Patz has recently blogged about how EU institutions can helpfully interact with human beings, or continue to operate like a permanent diplomatic congress where solidarity between governments is paramount. From a slightly different angle we can...
EU Access to Documents Reform: Council’s view on Parliament’s report
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Last week, the EU Parliament Civil Liberties committee – with the exception of the EPP group – voted in favour of a draft report which in essence supports more access to EU documents (see my blog post). Here is how the EU Council sees the...
Life hacking EU websites to find relevant information – my #h4t contribution
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Given that from what I see the EU Hackathon this week wasn’t really (meant to be) a contribution to more EU transparency, I thought I’d do a little life hack of EU institutions’ websites as my contribution outside the competition.
Gifts, shares and other loopholes – the MEP code of conduct
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If a week is a long time in politics, then it appears that seven months is a veritable aeon. That's how long it has been since the Sunday Times exposed the cash-for-influence scandal which engulfed three MEPs and caused some soul-searching in the EU'...
My complaint to the EU Ombudsman [updated]
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When I sat on a panel together with the EU Ombudsman in Ireland in February this year discussing legal and practical aspects of the EU access to documents regulation (1049/2001*), I said to Mr Diamandouros (the Ombudsman) that it may well be that I&#...
EU Digital Agenda: finding Commission documents
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The Digital Agenda for Europe was accompanied by a Commission staff working document known as: Europe's Digital Competitiveness Report 2010 Both Volume 1 (general ICT competitiveness report) and Volume 2 (ICT country profiles) of the Commission staff...
Transparency for all!
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There are days when I’m particularly proud to be a member of the Commission, and today is one of those. We adopted the revision of the Transparency and Accounting Directives to insert some disposals regarding disclosure of all payments done by...
A story for the Right to Know Day 2011: EU rights and EU Commission practice
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1 1/2 months ago, I've requested a meeting protocol of the Chefs de Cabinet of the EU Commission. As blogged before, my initial request received a negative reply. I appealed this decision, and - as I have also blogged - on 6 September I was informe...
Arrogant email from Michael Gove adviser confirms culture of secrecy
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The Guardian today published a leaked email in which a close aide to Michael Gove fiercely rebukes attempts by a civil servant to obtain transparency from a charity paid £1,000,000 of taxpayers’ money to administrate Gove’s “new schools” pro...
The evil madman Assange and his No 1 groupie, Pilger
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Just in case you didn’t read Nick Cohen’s brilliant demolition of the thoroughly evil mental case Assange, in the Observer this Sunday: “The betrayals and treachery of Julian Assange “You did not have to listen for too long t...
The Annual Activity Reports of the European Commission
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From time to time you stumble over interesting types of documents of the EU institutions, such as the European Parliament Library Briefings. One thing I’ve come across these days are the “Annual Activity Reports” of the different di...
‘The shady side of sunlight’ – a reply to Stephan Grimmelikhuijsen
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Stephan Grimmelikhuijsen’s paper “‘The shady side of sunlight’” for the Annual Conference of the European Group for Public Administration tries to argue why transparency is bad and problematic. His view seems to be based...
Access to EU Commission documents for my research: Still waiting and hoping
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As reported one month ago, I’ve requested a meeting protocol of a meeting of the Chef de Cabinets of the European Commission, which I need for my research. Having requested the document on 30 July 2011, the Commission refused to grant me any a...
The EU doesn't work in a transparent way
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Many of the decisions taken by the European institutions don't reach the ears of the pubic or, when they do so, it is only when they come into force. It is a major difference, no doubt about it, with national politics where debates are reported on a...
Access to EU Commission documents: 2010 statistics and 2011 academic realities [Updated]
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Yesterday, the EU Commission published its report on the application of the EU access to documents regulation in 2010 (PDF). The report gives some interesting figures, but one should see them in relation to reality, which shall be done below. A) The...
Does more transparency make better comms?
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The answer to this post’s title may be so obvious that you wonder why it needs writing, but Jon Worth’s idea to get a Blogging Day for greater European Parliament transparency together got me thinking beyond the knee-jerk reaction. One of...
Citizens first: EU Council ignores the Treaty
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In his blog post The schizophrenic Council, Ronny Patz saw the real face of the Council of the European Union as that of an EU institution …that may have started to understand how 21st century PR works but that has not yet understood how 21st centu...
Common register for EU lobbyists?
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MEPs discuss how to best control EU lobbyists. The institutions should have a common register for interest groups, but should it be mandatory? Watch the EuroparlTV video here.
Commission remains committed to publication of beneficiaries of EU farm aid
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Following the publication of new rules, EU Member State Ministries of Agriculture are required to publish before April 30 2011 detailed figures on all legal persons (companies) which are beneficiaries of Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) funding in...
WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, THE LIES GET GOING
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"Market jitters bring difficult choice between truth and lies for politicians, spokespeople".It's true that WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, THE LIES GET GOING.... But how to interpret the words of Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg, f...
State of EUnion: Wide ownership of Europe 2020?
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Can we hope for more ambitious economic policy reforms from the EU member states? How did the European Council and the European Parliament endorse Single Market reform? What did the Commission's Single Market Act (SMA) look like the morning after hav...
European Council: Economic policy reform priorities II
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The European Council referred ”further” to the Annual Growth Survey (AGS) from the Commission – in a footnote – when it endorsed ”the” (which?) priorities for fiscal consolidation and structural reform, as we saw in Part One. If, for th...
Time for EU Uncut?
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Like or loathe them but UK Uncut have been highlighting tax avoidance in the UK in a way no-one has ever done before. Vodafone, Fortnum and Mason… more on their site. But this is not a UK problem alone. Different corporation tax rates apply acr...
EU General Affairs Council: Feeding the cuckoos?
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Have you ever followed the hectic life of small birds, unwittingly having become foster parents for a gluttonous young cuckoo? Hectic and unrewarding, the life of these unsung heroes. How about having two of these rapacious strangers, instead of only...
Live blogging: EU Competitiveness Council, 9-10 March 2011 [Day 1]
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Today and tomorrow, in a pilot project, we will be covering the EU Council on Competitiveness as bloggers. As a preparation, you can read this post on how to find documents related to the meeting. You can also have a look into the background note pre...
EU Council (TTE) more open and transparent (Will it last?)
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The advance information was lousy, but I was happy to notice that the Council of the European Union desisted from treating every bit of information about progress on the Europe 2020 growth strategy as a state secret when it communicated after the me...
EU accession and member states should publish their UNCAC self-assessment reports!
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The six EU accession and member states (Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, France, Lithuania and Spain) that are part of the first year of the very first review cycle under the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC, see treaty text here) should follow the...
EU General Affairs Council (GAC) communication: Wrong, stupid and a missed opportunity
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Yesterday I published two blog posts in Swedish regarding the upcoming meeting of the General Affairs Council (GAC) the same day, 21 February 2011. The first entry looked at how the advance material published centrally by the Council managed to enlig...
MEPs corner the Commission on expert groups
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MEPs from all sides of the political spectrum last week attacked the Commission's failure to act against the industry dominance of many of its advisory bodies, the so-called expert groups. The Commission came under fierce criticism from more than 15...
Franco-German competitiveness pact: Transparently yours
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No specific proposals for the Franco-German competitiveness pact were put forward at the European Council 4 February 2011. They were presented earlier, in Berlin, if we believe the media reports. My latest blog posts, European Council: Pangloss meet...
Busy week in Brussels: EU politics and governance
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With the General Affairs Council (GAC), the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) and the European Council, it was a busy week in Brussels politics. Here is a roundup of my main blog posts (often the second on the same theme, downstream) about the meetings a...
European Semester and Annual Growth Survey: Governance by mushroom principle
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The impact of these heartening messages from president Herman Van Rompuy would be even more positive if the (European) Council did less to keep EU citizens in the dark. Annual Growth Survey When the Commission presented the ”clear direction on wher...
Immaculate conception of the European Council 4 February 2011
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Ahead of the European Council ”summit” on Friday, 4 February 2011, we looked at the preparatory General Affairs Council (GAC) in the blog post: An energetic and innovative European Council? (29 January 2011). Yesterday the foreign ministers and t...
Backlash against transparency: the right to corporate privacy?
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To what extent will a right-wing French MP sympathetic to big business and French government's ongoing manoeuvres to create a "corporate confidentiality" label endanger critical reporting on corporations and business transparency?Last week,...
Transparency in the Financing of Europarties
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Yesterday, we - the Transparency International EU Office - were invited to speak at a hearing of the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the European Parliament about the need for transparency of political parties at European level ("Europarties"). ...
Commission - belatedly - investigates John Bruton's revolving door move to Brussels lobby consultancy
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Ex-commissioner Günter Verheugen is not the only Commission official who just ignored the rules about seeking approval for a new job (Verheugen failed to inform the Commission of his new lobby consultancy firm, the European Experience Company). John...
The quest for EU documents: An exemplary journey
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Understanding EU-level decision-making is complicated. You have to be quite an expert to search and find relevant EU documents, even when they are public. So getting an idea on what is going on right now in the EU is beyond the capabilities of most,...
WikiLeaks: an increased call for transparency
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WikiLeaks’ latest release of classified documents raised deep concern among the United States (US) Government and put into question whether the freedom of expression, as established in the First Amendment of the US Constitution, should be objec...
Wikileaks – a topic for European Studies?
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The wikileaks saga has certainly been an exciting thing to follow. There has been a huge debate about the impact of “cablegate” and how wikileaks redefines journalism, international politics, human rights, terrorism, history and internet...
EU Council: Why keep EU2020 implementation report secret? (Updated)
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Yesterday I tried to follow single market developments and the Europe 2020 strategy (EU2020) by publishing two blog posts on Grahnlaw Suomi Finland: EU Competitiveness Council on Single Market Act Latest on Europe 2020 strategy In the later post I m...
Brussels Leaks – Doing more harm than good?
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Here it is…[drumroll]… Brussels Leaks – the website we’ve all been waiting for. Finally a place where all the dodgy EU dealings will be exposed. The wikileaks for Brussels! (I wonder whether anyone had noticed the BrusselsLe...
Brussels Leaks
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Monday saw the launch of Brussels Leaks, which pretty much does exactly what you would expect a website with the “-leaks” suffix to do. Like its illustrious forebear, WikiLeaks, Brussels Leaks wants to bring extreme transparency to the de...
Time for Wikileaks to sack Julian Assange
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There’s an interesting fault line opening up on the left between Julian Assange the Wikileaks hero and Julian Assange the potential rapist. Cath Elliott makes some good points in response to John Band’s nasty, dismissive piece about the Assange...
