Latest posts
Trilogue transparency: some light on the reform of European Political Party rules
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The European Parliament elections are approaching rapidly. Behind the scenes, so-called “informal trilogues” are taking place to define the rules that will govern EU-level political parties before and during these elections. Those t...
A quick reply to: ‘Getting it right on transparency’
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European Commissioner Maros Sefcovic just blogged: “Getting it right on transparency“. This comes one week ahead of the launch of the review process for the EU lobby register (‘Transparency Register‘) on 5 June 2013 when he wi...
Access to EU documents: Deadlock or light at the end of the tunnel?
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On Tuesday evening, hardly noticed by anyone, the European Parliament’s plenary discussed the deadlock in the reform of EU access to documents rules. For those of you who do not follow the reform debate, it’s enough to watch the first &he...
No horse-trading, but where is the beef?
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EU leaders didn’t exactly endorse our three-point plan for financial transparency at yesterday’s summit, but there were some promising developments nonetheless. Given that leaders had reserved only three hours to discuss how to stop tax e...
The European Council, tax fraud and corruption: an end to the horse-trading?
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It’s European Council time and, following the “off-shore leaks” scandals and revelations about secret bank accounts, there is the promise that we will see decisive action on tax fraud and tax evasion. In particular, EU gov...
The EU Expert Group on Corruption: Preparations for the 1st EU Anti-Corruption Report
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In 2011, the European Commission decided to launch the first EU Anti-Corruption report looking into corruption issues within 27 EU member states, plus Croatia. In order to gather outside expertise, the Commission set up a special Exper...
Clash of the Presidents: ECB under fire
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ECB President Mario Draghi has been feeling the heat from other presidents the length and breadth of the EU. Just yesterday, Irish President Michael D Higgins, not noted for his reticence in public debate, claimed the ECB had to reform …...
Registries for Beneficial Owners: Member State’s Declare their Hands
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Readers of the TI-EU Office’s AML blog will be pretty familiar with stories of how the EU’s financial system has been repeatedly exploited to launder criminally derived cash. But no matter how many examples you may have come across in &he...
EU party finance reform stops before the finishing line
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Monday evening, the European Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs committee finally voted on the new rules for European Political Parties (official EP press release, video recording of the session). We’ve been blogging about some red flags...
Integrity Default Alert: EU probes collusion in banking sector
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Corruption thrives in the dark, dank corners where no-one is looking, and banking is no exception. Who had heard of the LIBOR benchmark until the rate-rigging scandal erupted early last year? Now it is a byword for bad behaviour in …...
Troubled waters: European Neighbourhood progress reports published
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Today the EU published progress reports for its Neighbourhood partner countries, which also looks at reforms in governance and anti-corruption. It is no secret that the EU’s closest neighbours generally face considerable problems of corruption...
The 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive: Brussels hears what we want to talk about
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Following the European Commission’s publication of a proposal for a 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive, the Commission hosted a conference in Brussels 15 March to discuss the hot issues in the world of Anti-money Laundering and Counter Terrori...
Compromising on transparency and accountability in European Party finances?
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Tomorrow, the European Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs Committee will vote on new rules for European Political Parties (draft report, draft amendments to the report, draft compromise amendments, Budget Committee opinion, Legal Affairs Commi...
The EU’s First Anti-Corruption Report: Will Good Intentions Yield Action?
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The EU estimates that corruption costs €120 billion in its Member States every year, according to a recent speech from Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström. That’s a mere financial estimate, before we consider its corrosi...
Can integrity fix the EU carbon market?
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“Market in freefall.” “Carbon price crashes.” Carbon trading has come in for a lot of criticism recently. With the carbon price dropping to new low after new low in recent months, some are calling for the European Union Emissi...
Shifting perspectives: corruption is a human rights issue
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Today, our colleague Gareth Sweeney (Chief Editor of TI’s Global Corruption Report) has made the case for stronger ties between anti-corruption initiatives and the human rights movement at the European Parliament DROI Committee‘s wor...
Transparency of interests of European Commissioners
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Last week, we were invited to speak at a European Parliament hearing on the avoidance of conflicts of interest (video recording, background file, EP library briefing). We thought it might be worth following up, and we have produced an overv...
Bad arguments that perpetuate conflicts of interest
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When we proposed last year that the European Central Bank (ECB) should improve the way that it manages conflicts of interest - especially conflicts of interest raised by the “revolving door” between private and public sectors &n...
Press “reset” on ECB say MEPs
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“…[T]he glaring mismatch between the power that it wields and its non-existent democratic legitimacy cannot be allowed to continue.” That is the hard-hitting conclusion of a European Parliament report on the European Central Bank (...
Time to gear up Romanian fight against corruption
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This morning the European Commission presented its 12th progress report for Romania under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM), which looks at progress in anti-corruption and judicial reform. The report has a more positive spin since the...
