International Herald Tribune, 25/4/2008

Senior lawmakers in the European Parliament have recommended that a business group be expelled from its office inside the legislature, saying it is seeking improper influence over legislation and other parliamentary business, officials said Friday.

The European Business and Parliament Scheme — an umbrella grouping of parliamentarians and 28 multinational companies that include Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica, software maker Microsoft and railway company Thalys — has been set up to give lawmakers firsthand business experience and industry an opportunity to get involved in shaping economic policies.

Lawmakers' concerns about a possible conflict of interest center on an arrangement under which the EU Parliament pays for some of the costs associated with the group's work, including phone bills and some travel and accommodation expenses. Saying the group is too intertwined with the assembly's affairs, they note that it even has a parliamentary e-mail account of the type reserved for lawmakers.

The concerns have emerged as the EU assembly seeks to clean up its image after a series of allegations of fraud by some of its members and a lack of transparency in tracking lawmakers' use of expense accounts.

The business grouping said its activities are transparent and that it has broken no rules. It said it had not yet been informed of the recommendation to expel it from the building and cut its financial support. Leaders of the EU assembly's political parties made the recommendation this week to the assembly's administration, which is expected to approve it.

The group has been given an office in the European Parliament and an official parliamentary e-mail address, and has had its phone bills paid by the assembly, said Danish lawmaker Jens-Peter Bonde from the Independence/Democracy political group. That, he says, presents a possible conflict of interest for the parliament.

Critics say the 15,000 lobbyists and industry representatives registered in Brussels hold too much sway in drafting EU laws on issues that have a big financial impact on business across the 27-nation bloc. They point to recent rules on industrial chemicals and carbon emission caps.

Earlier this month, a European Parliament panel has called for a mandatory register and code of conduct for industry representatives advising EU officials on legislation.

"If lobbying is properly done and they adhere to their own code of conduct it could be OK, but accepting an office in the parliament was a mistake," said Erik Wesselius from Corporate Europe Observatory, an EU lobby watchdog. "Using a parliament e-mail and phone, that's a bit too much."

After a debate on the matter this week, Italian Green lawmaker Monica Frassoni said it would be "very surprising" if the group did not move out of the parliament.

She said the scheme was legal and lawmakers, in general, needed contact with companies that would give them a better understanding of Europe's business environment.

But she added that an invitation by the group to attach parliament members to individual member companies for several days was "weird, if not questionable."

Companies pay up to €15,000 (US$23,400) a year to join the group.

Though the group says it's not a lobby, Belgian Liberal Democrat deputy Dirk Sterckx, who sits on its board, acknowledged that that depends on one's definition of the term. "It's a question of what lobbying means," he said.