Online openness poll launched to test EU institutions

Date:18/09/03

By Martin Banks

A MAJOR online campaign is launched today by business chiefs and European Voice, aimed at creating more transparency within the European Union institutions.

As part of the joint initiative, readers are invited to assess the level of openness displayed by the European Commission, Parliament and Council of Ministers across a range of areas.

They will be marked out of five, with one point denoting a "very poor" performance in that particular field and five meaning "excellent".

Categories include general transparency, quality of the institution's website, implementation of directives, renewal of passes, openness of officials and access to documents.

Links to the questionnaire can be found on this newspaper's website: www.europeanvoice.com

The campaign is the brainchild of the British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) in Belgium and the Society of European Affairs Professionals (SEAP), who represent people who work with EU institutions on a day-to-day basis.

Both organizations will regularly examine the results of the "scorecard" and the findings will be reported in this newspaper.

Anyone involved within the EU institutions, or who works for them, is free to take part.

Respondents, whose identity will remain confidential, will also be invited to make comments on the questionnaire.

The campaign follows recent publication of a key position paper by the BCC and SEAP on transparency.

It states: "We firmly believe that transparency and openness are basic key elements of better and more cost-effective decision-making and we are calling on each institution to work together to make this a priority."

A spokesman for the BCC said: "It will be fascinating to see where progress on transparency and openness, or lack of it, is being made by the institutions."

European Voice publisher Dennis Landsbert-Noon said: "Our mission statement is to promote informed debate, openness and progress in the EU and we are delighted to help the Chamber and SEAP with this campaign."

• MEPs will vote in Strasbourg next week on a report on access to documents by UK Socialist deputy Michael Cashman.

Business leaders and European Voice launched an online campaign on 18 September 2003 to assess the level of openness displayed by the European Commission, Parliament and Council of Ministers across a range of areas.