Activities of Daniel FREUND related to 2020/2272(ACI)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT on the conclusion of an interinstitutional agreement between the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, and the European Commission on a mandatory transparency register
Amendments (17)
Amendment 12 #
Proposal for a decision
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Welcomes the fact that the status of the Council of the European Union has changed from that of an observer to that of a formal party to the Agreement; considers nevertheless that its participation is limited to meetings with the most senior officials, and, under voluntary schemes only, meetings of the Permanent Representatives and Deputy Permanent Representatives during their presidency and six months before; insists that for the credibility of the scheme all Permanent Representations should take an active part in that voluntary scheme, continue to apply it after their presidency has ended and extend, it insofar as this is possible, to other officialto other officials and at least to all staff working on policies; welcomes the fact that some Member States’ representations are already applying those rules independently of their presidency; insist that citizens must not have to wait until the end of the 10-year cycle of revolving presidencies until the last permanent representation applies those rules at all times; considers national ministers to be central to the work of the Council; therefore calls on national ministers to commit to transparency on their meetings with interest representatives;
Amendment 16 #
Proposal for a decision
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Insists that the President of the European Council and his cabinet should be transparent about their meetings with interest representatives; calls on the President of the European Council and the Council’s General Secretariat to follow the Ombudsman’s recommendation of 18 June 2019, especially its proposal that the Council's General Secretariat should keep a full record of any meetings held between interest representatives and the President of the European Council and/or members of his or her cabinet and that this information should be recorded in the Council’s official file management system and made public;
Amendment 17 #
Proposal for a decision
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Points out that in the negotiation process the Commission has not made any substantive additional commitments to the scheme; regrets in particular that, with regard to personal scope, it covers only the most senior staff of the institutions; insists that any revision of the conditionality arrangements with regard to all three institutions should include meetings with other staff of the institutions, at Heads of Unit level and above; stresses that no institution should wait for the others in reaching this higher level of transparency; notes that following the implementation of this new Agreement, Parliament will be the only institution of which the Secretary General and Directors-General are not covered by the obligation only to meet registered interest representatives, and pledges to close this loophole as soon as possible;
Amendment 21 #
Proposal for a decision
Paragraph 8 a (new)
Paragraph 8 a (new)
8a. Considers it to be important to define the meetings with interest representatives that should be published as meetings scheduled in advance; welcomes Commission’s practice to publish also those meetings taking place in a different format than in person-meetings, such as by video- conference; insists that a scheduled telephone call should be considered a meeting as well;
Amendment 28 #
Proposal for a decision
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Welcomes the commitments made by the Parliament in the course of the negotiations, notably on the proposal “Closing the loopholes – Parliament’s proposals on conditionality” and insists on the need to fully implement and publish them in accordance with Article 5(3) of the Agreement without undue delay;
Amendment 33 #
Proposal for a decision
Paragraph 14 – point a a (new)
Paragraph 14 – point a a (new)
(aa) introducing a rule that Parliament staff are allowed to schedule meetings only with those interest representatives which are registered, with exceptions similar to those contained in Commission Decision of 25 November 2014 on the publication of information on meetings held between Directors-General of the Commission and organisations or self- employed individuals;
Amendment 34 #
Proposal for a decision
Paragraph 14 – point a b (new)
Paragraph 14 – point a b (new)
(ab) introducing a rule that Parliament staff are to publish their meetings with individuals or organisations in the scope of the Transparency Register; this rule should apply at least to categories of staff corresponding to the similar practice in Commission, ideally to all staff working on policy matters and could build on the practices and technical solutions developed by the Commission;
Amendment 35 #
Proposal for a decision
Paragraph 14 – point b
Paragraph 14 – point b
Amendment 38 #
Proposal for a decision
Paragraph 14 – point c
Paragraph 14 – point c
(c) making participation as a speaker at workshops andall events organised by committees or cross-party intergroups such as workshops and seminars, as well as delegation meetings, conditional upon registration;
Amendment 41 #
Proposal for a decision
Paragraph 14 – point c a (new)
Paragraph 14 – point c a (new)
(ca) making the co-hosting of events on Parliament’s premises conditional upon registration for anyone falling under the scope of the Transparency Register;
Amendment 42 #
Proposal for a decision
Paragraph 14 – point c b (new)
Paragraph 14 – point c b (new)
(cb) amending standard contracts for any staff employed by Parliament to include advance agreement for publishing their name in case, while on leave or after leaving the public service of EU institutions, they take advantage of the 'revolving door' to become an individual or employee of an organisation within the scope of the Transparency Register ;
Amendment 44 #
Proposal for a decision
Paragraph 14 a (new)
Paragraph 14 a (new)
14a. Calls specifically on the Conference of Committee Chairs to adopt guidelines in order to support rapporteurs, shadow rapporteurs and committee chairs to fulfil their obligation under Rule 11(3) to publish online in respect of each report all scheduled meetings with interest representatives falling within the scope of the Transparency register by reminding them of this duty at the beginning of their work on each file and by pro-actively preparing a legislative footprint based on the meetings published by the Members on their Parliament web profile;
Amendment 46 #
Proposal for a decision
Paragraph 14 b (new)
Paragraph 14 b (new)
14b. Welcomes the fact that the Secretary-General has instructed Parliament’s services to connect the tool to the Transparency Register and Legislative Observatory and encourages any effort that would further improve this tool, including by providing access for processing of the data provided by Members in the Parliament website infrastructure concerning meetings with interest representatives in a machine readable format, providing an option to link the meeting to membership of a delegation, to indicate that the meeting took place at staff-level, to link the entries on Parliament's website to the Member's own website and to make this infrastructure available in all official languages of the Union;
Amendment 51 #
Proposal for a decision
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. Welcomes the fact that registrants are obliged to publish financial information of both clients and intermediaries and that financial information is also required from registrants that do not represent commercial interests; welcomes the fact that registrants are obliged not only to publish financial information once a year but also to keep that information up-to- date, in particular where a significant change occurs with details subject to implementing decisions;
Amendment 54 #
Proposal for a decision
Paragraph 19 a (new)
Paragraph 19 a (new)
19a. Deplores the fact that it was not possible to include an obligation for registrants to publish 'revolving door' cases, i.e. publishing the names and new roles of persons who were Members or staff of the institutions before taking up activities within the scope of the register; calls on the signatory institutions to review the Code of Conduct for registrants with the aim of achieving more transparency in this regard;
Amendment 55 #
Proposal for a decision
Paragraph 19 b (new)
Paragraph 19 b (new)
19b. Deplores that interest representatives are not required to publicly disclose political donations to parties and candidates; calls on the signatory institutions to review the Code of Conduct for registrants to achieve more transparency in this regard; suggests such disclosure should include ‘in kind’ contributions, such as advertising, use of facilities, the provision of design and printing services, the donation of equipment, or the provision of board memberships, employment or consultancy work to elected politicians or candidates for office ;
Amendment 58 #
Proposal for a decision
Paragraph 20
Paragraph 20
20. Welcomes the undertaking to increase resources for maintenance, development and promotion of the register, as well as the Council’s formal contribution to the secretariat; believes that such commitments to the joint scheme should enhance the capacity of the Secretariat to provide timely guidance to the registrants and support them in the registration and update of the requested data; nevertheless, insists, in particular, that human resources are very limited in proportion to the number of registrants in comparison with similar national schemes and that that limitation hampers the efficiency of the operation of the register; calls on its General Secretary to lead by example in mobilising additional staff for the Secretariat;