The complaint referred to minutes from a meeting in May between the cabinet of Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis and the European Round Table for Industry, which read: “ERT inquired about the proposals regarding the first omnibus proposal. Head of Cabinet gave an overview of the state of play.”
Lots of lobbying
The Ombudsman wrote in its response to the NGO that the Commission’s “implicit refusal” to provide any follow-up documents on the meeting after it requested them justified an inquiry, which it opened earlier this month.
The NGO argued that it was particularly important to access the information given the “enormous” amount of lobbying that has gone into the simplification plan — the Commission’s move to cut red tape.
It said more than 600 one-on-one meetings between the Commission and lobbyists have been held on the plan, which businesses have largely welcomed because it aims to scrap piles of proposed laws. At the same time the initiative has concerned civil society, which sees it as a euphemism for deregulation.
The complaint also impugns the Commission’s new approach to openness around meetings.
Last year, in one of the first moves of von der Leyen’s second term, the EU executive expanded the amount of meetings that must be made public. Those obligations now apply to more than 1,500 officials, not just the most senior members of the Commission.