New EU Interinstitutional Agreement on a Mandatory Transparency Register

In December 2020, the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the European Council jointly adopted an agreement for a reinforced Transparency Register. Building on the joint Transparency Register in place for lobbyists to the European Commission and the European Parliament since 2011, the new agreement also covers the Council and allocates more resources to the Register’s administration. Another important innovation is the fact that the register will now be activity-based, which means that it does not matter who carries out the activity as long as the activity in question falls within the scope of the Register. The scope now also includes lobbying done on behalf of third countries “by legal entities, offices and networks representing such authorities without diplomatic status or through an intermediary”. Finally, new information is required to be disclosed on “membership of unofficial grouping activities organized on the European Parliament’s premises” and “any current intermediaries that are not covered by the most recent financial year closed shall be declared separately by name”. The aim of the agreement is to establish common rules and principles towards transparent and ethical interest representation at EU-level.

The new agreement will lead to more transparency, as covered under Principle 2 of the Responsible Lobbying Framework [the Framework] requiring lobbying organisations to be open, complete, and truthful in their communications on the topic. This means disclosing (among others) the nature of all direct and indirect lobbying, spend and political donations, shared materials, and third-party organisation memberships. The information which registrants must provide covers most of the points included under Principle 2 of the Framework. Registrants must also commit to abide by the Code of Conduct included in the Agreement.

While this agreement is a positive development, critics highlight that there is nothing mandatory in the agreement and that each institution will decide whether to make registration a pre-condition for each type of lobbying activities.

The entry into force of the agreement is foreseen for the Spring of 2021, once each of the institutions have officially signed it. The official press release is available here.