International

As a body which represents the people, the European Parliament claims to be an open institution, but this is not borne out in practice. The EP is as involved as ever in back-room politics. High time that it really did open up.

This week, together with a number of bodies including the United Nations and Transparency International, I organised a meeting in the EP on the fight against corruption. During this gathering criticisms were levelled at the EP itself. Negotiations are currently proceeding between the EP and the European Commission on improvement of the transparency register for lobbyists. Rumour has it that these talks are not going well and the register will continue to be purely voluntary. Lobbyists who don’t fancy it simply don’t register and enjoy access nevertheless to all of the EU institutions, only lacking a permanent pass which does not require them to be signed in. What’s bizarre is that the negotiations are being conducted by members of the EP Bureau, which is made up of the presidents of the various groups. The Bureau keeps the meeting papers secret, even from their fellow MEPs. It’s a sick joke that a subject like transparency can be discussed behind closed doors, but such things are commonplace in the EP. In the past I’ve described the Bureau as the Parliament’s ‘black box’: everything is decided there, from questions of accommodation to reimbursement of expenses, but as a MEP you can never find out what’s going on, so what chance do ordinary members of the public stand of hearing anything about its proceedings?

Another form of back-room politics can be seen when it comes to the legislative process. To start with everything is indeed transparent: Parliament produces a report on a legislative proposal, and this document includes all of its proposed amendments. After that, however, the curtains close and the MEPs responsible for the particular report and for other political groups’ criticisms of it meet behind closed doors with representatives of the Council of Ministers. After what often amounts to months a compromise is arrived at and that’s that. So the most exciting phase of the legislative process degenerates into back-room politics. It’s as if our own national parliament were to end behind closed doors the process of dealing with a bill proposed by the Dutch government. Nobody would accept that, yet in the EP it’s daily practice.

The EP must once and for all open the doors and shutters. Don’t be afraid of the media or of the people. If you have nothing to hide, then you’ve nothing to fear.