The European Union has a “need for greater transparency and greater efforts to increase the responsible involvement of the public if we want to safeguard the legitimacy of the European decision-making process”. The question of the relation between citizens and EU institutions remains in the foreground. A contribution to this debate is now provided by the Green Paper on the European Transparency Initiative, adopted by the Commission and presented by the President José Manuel Barroso. It examines in particular the question of lobbying (some 15,000 lobbies are officially present in Brussels), and the introduction of obligations for member states to publish information on the beneficiaries of EU funds and other institutional practices that enable “the citizen to know and to understand how the Community works, who benefits from its funds and to what “pressures the EU institutions are subjected”. According to the Executive, which with its Green Paper intends to launch a public debate on these issues as a basis for deciding on possible provisions, “reservations” emerge “as regards the practices of lobbying that are held to go beyond the legitimate representation of interests, such as for example distorted information on the possible economic, social or environmental impact of legislative proposals, campaigns of mass communication pro or contra a particular cause and possible conflicts of interest”. The risk of “an excessive influence” being exerted “by some interest groups on the EU decision-making process” is also pointed out.
