Dear friends and colleagues, The EU Commission has promised to update and strengthen the legal base of the EU lobby register. Commission President Juncker made more transparency one of his priorities. In order to outline what the European Parliament wants, the Constitutional Affairs committee had asked me to draft an initiative report on “transparency, accountability […]

The mandate of the European Parliament’s special committee investigating tax issues should be extended for six months, according to the coordinators of the political groups, who took the decision today. The conference of presidents of the political groups will now consider the proposal on Thursday, following the initiative of the Greens/EFA group. Commenting on the […]

The TAXE committee on tax investigation is running out of time, but there is more to uncover. Please find here why we need to prolongate the committee’s mandate.

Sir, In addition to those described by Patrick Jenkins in “Why is it taking so long for Europe’s banks to recover?” (Inside Business, November 10), another reason for the relative weakness of European banks is the limitations placed on them by international financial reporting standards. Since the 1970s, US GAAP has required banks to earlier […]

The shortlist for the 2015 Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought was today selected by the European Parliament’s foreign affairs, development and human rights committees (1). The shortlist includes Saudi Arabian online activist Raif Badawi, who was nominated by the Greens/EFA group for this year’s prize. Commenting after the vote, Green human rights spokesperson Barbara […]

This interview can also be read and listened to on EurActiv.   The lead MEP on a European Parliament transparency report has said that he was lobbied “all the time” during secret negotiations over EU law, and had better access to classified documents just because he is German. Sven Giegold exclusively told EurActiv he wouldn’t […]