Tag Archives | EU

Financial Times joins chorus for more transparency at the ECB

We at TI-EU have been questioning the levels of transparency and accountability at the ECB, as you can see in our op-ed in the EU Observer and our blog post on President Barroso’s address . We are glad to see that those wise old heads at the Financial Times (motto: “without fear or favour”) came to the same conclusion. They, like […]

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On the frontline against corruption in Europe

Last Friday, Cobus de Swardt, Managing Director of the global Transparency International Secretariat in Berlin, was visiting Brussels for an interview in the Euronews show “On the Frontline” (OTFL) for a special edition titled “Is there a corruption crisis in Europe?” which aired yesterday. The discussions around this show started already back in August when OTFL […]

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MEPs help to make the EU 0.0014286% more transparent

Compared to the EU’s 2011 budget of around 140 billion Euros, 2 million Euros (that’s 0.0014286% of 140 billion Euros) doesn’t sound like much.  However, a fight – which is expected to come to a head this week – between the European Parliament and the European Commission over this relatively small sum of money may […]

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Brussels waters down Euro-Parliament Code of Conduct

In the European Parliament the issue of codes of conduct is a hot topic at the moment. As one Member of the European Parliament recently stated on facebook, “What my employment was before I was elected, is not of the European Parliament or your business.”  Unfortunately, it seems that some members of the European Parliament (MEPs) […]

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Dealing in the dark: Portugal’s sad defence contracts

On 06 September, Transparency International releases its annual report on enforcement of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. Right at the time the European Union is consumed with the debate over the debt crisis and politicians across the EU are busy playing the blame game, an interesting case going on in Portugal helps shed some light on […]

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Where do Multinational Corporations go on their holidays?

…and how much money do they spend when they get there? Despite their global reach, Transparency International’s recent Transparency in Corporate Reporting report – which assesses 105 multinational companies’ anti-corruption reporting –  shows that these companies reveal very little information about their financial and non-financial contribution to the countries in which they operate. The European […]

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EU: Bulgaria and Romania fail the corruption test again

Over the past months, the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union (EU), has been exasperated with Bulgaria’s failure to put corrupt senior officials and crime bosses behind bars. Meanwhile in neighbouring Romania, trouble has been brewing since a major political turf fight has taken centre stage. The timing couldn’t have been worse. […]

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Civil Society in Libya – between high hopes and frustration

Sixteen months after the February 17th revolution the country is preparing for its next historical step: The upcoming elections for a new parliament! Although they have just been postponed from June 19th to take place on July 7th 2012, these elections will be the first free elections for the people of Libya after the 42 […]

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Fail Again. Fail Better: Reform of the EU Banking Sector.

Samuel Beckett’s exhortation to “fail better” could also be applied to the EU banking sector. Time and time again, troubled financial institutions have been bailed out by the taxpayer because they have been perceived as “too important to fail”. The ability of a large number of banks to benefit from excessive risk-taking without fully absorbing […]

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EU agencies face long summer cooling off

You have never heard of them, but they assess the safety of the food you eat, the water you bathe in and the drugs your doctor prescribes. Welcome to the world of European Union agencies – independent, arms-length bodies established by the EU to provide specialist advice and expertise to policy makers on a wide […]

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