First Vice-President Timmermans was present for an exchange of views on a range of pending files at the AFCO committee meeting in the European Parliament.
Vice-President Timmermans referred to the EU transparency register and mentioned that Commissioners, Cabinets and Director Generals meet only with transparency registered lobbyists and organizations through a mandatory system. 2400 organizations have registered since last December.
Hence, meetings with stakeholders constitute an essential part of EU’s policy process in order to rebuilt citizens’ confidence and that should applied across the three institutions involved in law making.
He added that the Commission will launch a public consultation soon aiming always to improve its role on consultations ‘’we’ll do more and we’ll do better’’. Mr Timmermans asked for better identification of conflict of interests and reinforcement of transparency in legislative process including the trilateral negotiations. On the TTIP and EU’s trade negotiations aspects he emphasized that the debates were held sometimes on emotions rather than facts, hence in order to improve the understanding and the perceptions of TTIP negotiations across the EU, institutions have to make their work as visible and transparent as possible given the fact that transparency is essential to recreate public trust. Vice-President made clear that TTIP negotiations cannot be 100% transparent taking into consideration the level of trust in confidence in the Council before any negotiations, there is room for more transparency on the mandate of negotiations though.
Furthermore, he focused on other issues like e-voting by saying that it is the future of Europe although it is still under national competence and constitutes a difference of culture of EU member states. Here, he expressed his practical and not the ideological point of view that all the decision-makers should be included in this list and not only the policy-makers. In that respect and without being dogmatic, he asked MEPs who preach transparency to implement the same rules as the Commission when it comes to meetings with lobbyists, even if the MEPs are directly elected. That could be a step forward to innovate and go further that path of rebuilding citizens’ trust.
On some comments about the UK referendum Mr Timmermans considered better not to enter in this discussion, even though later in the afternoon AFCO Committee touched upon that issue. During the Brexit discussion many views were expressed making clear that referendums in EU are tricky. The chair of the AFCO Committee Ms Hubner stated that Britain will decide on its future in Europe with a referendum once negotiations with the EU have been concluded and that she thinks that the British are really seeking their identity today. They want to identify themselves in the context of Europe. In the beginning she had much more hope, but she returned to Brussels less optimistic after visiting the UK. She said that it is not clear whether the European Parliament as such can formally enter in this whole process. She firmly believes that in December there will be no deal and expressed her hope that the Council will finalize everything in February.
‘’Secrecy creates mythology and mythology creates distrust in politics, so let’s take out mythology of politics’’ pointed out First Vice-President by concluding the exchange of views with the Members of the AFCO Committee.