[open-government] FOR SIGN ON: Lobby Transparency Letter to EU Commission

[Andreas Pavlou]

Dear colleagues,

On 23 April 2015, the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics 
Regulation (ALTER-EU) <http://www.alter-eu.org> will launch a public 
campaign <http://www.alter-eu.org/node/531> to demand greater lobby 
transparency at both the EU and member state levels - and we would like 
to ask you to *support us by signing the attached letter*.

The EU lobby transparency register is meant to tell us who the EU's 
lobbyists are; who they are working for; how much they spend on 
influencing policy; and what specific dossiers they lobby on. Making 
this information fully transparent can reduce unethical lobbying and 
also begin to ensure a better balance between corporate and public 
interest groups in the access to, and influence they have on, 
decision-making processes. *Whether you work on climate change, TTIP, 
labour rights, data protection, austerity or any other topic, we are 
sure you will recognise that improved lobby transparency will help all 
of us with our campaign work.*

Yet the lobby register does not deliver real lobby transparency, as our 
recent report “New and Improved? Why the EU Lobby Register still fails 
to deliver <http://www.alter-eu.org/documents/2015/01>” makes clear. An 
announcement by European Commission President Juncker and First 
Vice-President Timmermans that they will work to boost lobby 
transparency is a positive development which now gives us a unique 
political opportunity to demand a high-quality and legally-binding EU 
register. But in order to achieve this, we need your help.

We would like to invite your organisation to *sign-on to the attached 
letter* which we will send to Frans Timmermans, the commissioner 
responsible, on Monday 11 May.

Please let us know by *Thursday 7 May* at the latest if your 
organisation will sign on to the letter. You can provide your sign-off 
to ALTER-EU steering committee member Access Info Europe *by contacting 
Claudio Cesarano* claudio at access-info.org 
<mailto:claudio at access-info.org>. Please send him a high resolution 
*logo *that we can use on the letter. Unfortunately, due to the number 
of groups that we are approaching in this way, it is not possible to 
amend the text of the letter, but do get in touch with us if you have 
any questions of clarification about the text.

You can also get involved in the lobby transparency campaign in other ways:

- Help us promote the letter on social media when we publish it in May. 
More information will follow, with specific hashtags etc.
- Join our lobby register campaign email list by contacting Nicola at 
info at alter-eu.org <mailto:info at alter-eu.org>
- Come to our ALTER-EU coalition gathering 
<http://www.alter-eu.org/events/2015/04/02/alter-eu-coalition-gathering-22-23-april-2015-to-launch-the-new-lobby-transparency> 
on Wednesday 22 April at Mundo B in Brussels. Please RSVP to Nicola at 
info at alter-eu.org <mailto:info at alter-eu.org>
- Come to our European Parliament event 
<http://www.alter-eu.org/events/2015/04/02/making-brussels%E2%80%99-lobbying-fully-transparent-a-debate-on-the-future-of-the-eu-lobby> 
at 9.30am-12.30pm Thursday 23 April for the official launch of the lobby 
transparency campaign.
- Please RSVP to Nicola at info at alter-eu.org <mailto:info at alter-eu.org>

Thanks very much in advance for your support!

With best wishes,
Andreas Pavlou, on behalf of ALTER-EU
altereu
-- 
Andreas Pavlou
Access Info Europe
+34 913 656 558
twitter: @andreaspavlou skype: andreas.pavlou1987
www.access-info.org www.asktheEU.org www.opengovstandards.org




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