EU ombudsman wants more transparency on commission-appointed expert groups

Emily O'Reilly welcomes commission's proposed improvements, but wants further opening up to public scrutiny

By Brian Johnson

Brian Johnson is Managing Editor of The Parliament Magazine

03 Jun 2015

European ombudsman Emily O'Reilly has said she will look closely at the reasons why the European commission rejected her main proposals to reform the fundamental process of determining the make-up of Brussels so-called "expert groups".

O'Reilly had sent, earlier this year, a number of proposed changes to commission vice president Frans Timmermans in a bid to address what the EU administrative watchdog termed "shortcomings" in the Brussels executive's system of appointing members to its expert advisory groups.

The expert group system was designed to provide detailed sector or issue specific expertise for commission officials framing new policies and legislation.

However over the years the commission has been accused of relying too heavily on the opinions of big business interests within these expert groups and has been criticised over the transparency of the appointment process for individuals and organisations.

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Following an own-initiative inquiry into complaints raised by transparency campaigners ALTER-EU and subsequent open public consultation O'Reilly, in January, sent a list of recommendations to the commission vice president aimed at addressing the issues of corporate dominance and conflicts of interest.

The commissioner's response - which accepted, "several suggestions put forward by the ombudsman, in order to improve a number of aspects" - was unveiled and welcomed by O'Reilly on Tuesday.

"The commission's response to my first set of suggestions is encouraging and should help to secure the full range of expertise needed and increase the transparency of the process, which is key to building public trust, she said.

In its reply, the commission said it would prepare new provisions on managing potential conflicts of interest for individual experts appointed in a personal capacity as well as vowing to make its selection procedures more transparent by including a requirement for certain categories of expert group members to be recorded on the EU's lobby transparency register.

Timmermans also promised to revise the executive's separate register of expert groups by spring 2016.

However, the commission flatly rejected O'Reilly's call to adopt a new framework for determining each group that would legally define issues such as the composition, balance and selection criteria of each individual expert group.

The executive also argued against revealing detailed minutes of group deliberations citing the issue of mutual trust saying "experts should be able to contribute freely to the work of groups, without any risk of external pressure".

"The commission still needs to do more to open up the important work of these groups to public scrutiny, in particular by publishing detailed minutes of their work said O'Reilly, adding that she intended to also, "examine closely the reasons put forward by the commission for not adopting a new legal framework for expert groups."

Pascoe Sabido, a researcher for transparency organisation Corporate Europe Observatory, a member of the ALTER-EU campaign group told the Parliament Magazine that, "together with other civil society groups and some MEPs, we've been pushing for reforms to the commission's expert group system for several years".

Echoing O'Reilly's concerns, Sabido added, "These proposals to improve the system are welcome if long overdue. However, the key issue of corporate dominance is still ignored".

"Similarly, the commission has refused to draw up legally binding rules across all departments, which means efforts to stop industry using these groups as lobby vehicles will be patchy at best."

"The commission has shown yet again just how out of touch it is with the same European public it's supposed to be serving."