The EU executive has long consulted expert committees to better address the technicalities inherent in the application of EU legislation, via a practice known as "comitology", however, it is increasingly apparent that these expert committees are no longer comprised of an appropriate mix of government experts from each member state and representatives of civil society, industry and scientists.

The partners of ECRC, made up of representatives of NGOs, debt advice services and social and legal scientists are willing to share their expertise with the Commission, as was the case last week when DG Employment, SANCO and Internal Market attended a seminar on Overindebtedness. Why are the views and knowledge of these professionals not being given a fair chance to reach the ears of staff at the EU institutions who themselves lack the resources or know-how.

Though the European Parliament should also make greater use of experts with views from other stakeholder positions, MEPs have endorsed a transparency report by the think tank Alter-EU, which has analysed the make-up of the European Commission's financial expert groups, people invited to advise the Commission on financial matters. The report concludes that large private banks and insurance giants have dominated the Commission's thinking before and after the onset of the financial crisis. The finance industry may know what is best for the market, but it is naive to think that it will be impartial to its own self-interests when it invests its time and money in helping devise financial regulation. Two members of the parliament's newly-established special committee on the financial crisis, Cornelis de Jong and Sven Giegold, came out in force against the EU executive's proposals on regulating the financial sector. Both MEPs backed the findings of the report and criticised the Commission's interpretation and its response to the crisis.

ECRC has been calling for more systematic inclusion of consumer representation in expert groups, and a fair access to influence of policy makers. Below are a few of the points raised from Alter-EU's October 2009 report "A captive Commission: the role of the financial industry in shaping EU regulation"

Commission "narrow-minded"

The EU executive department responsible for financial regulation is the DG Internal Market, which since October 2004 has been led by the former Irish Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy. According to the report, there are 8 external expert groups, 84 % of which are made up actors from the financial industry. Just 8% of the members come from trade unions, 4% from consumer NGOs and 4% from academia, says the report with the most representatives coming from Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas and Societe Generale. Current Commission proposals skirt around the fact that we don't know what to do if another crisis happens, de Jong said, criticising the Commission for remedial solutions to bankers' bonuses and financial supervision. Giegold lambasted a recent report from the EU executive on its response to the crisis as narrow-minded for failing to take into account global imbalances between the three leading currencies: the yen, the dollar and the euro.

London is a key lobby

Rasmussen alleged that currently there is a substantial London city lobby, especially surrounding a draft directive to regulate hedge funds and private equity groups. The City of London regularly courts journalists and lawmakers in Brussels, including a visit from the city's mayor Boris Johnson to rally against the hedge funds directive (the Mayor's budget was 77% financed by hedge funds and private equity groups and the British Conservative party received donations from hedge funds and their managers to the tune of GBP3.64m in the first six months of 2009, according to research done by the PES).

Lists still not transparent

Alter-EU's report is the second of its kind on the composition of expert groups. In March the Commission assured ALTER-EU it would publish lists of experts sitting on advisory groups by the summer. The Commission's comments came after the lobbying transparency group called on the Commission to dissolve some of its expert groups, warning that in some cases "the predominance of industry representatives" was putting the public interest "at risk". Though there have been improvements since March, it is still not clear whether individuals are acting in a personal capacity or if they are affiliated with a financial employer, says Yiorgos Vassalos, one of the report's authors.

In addition, he claims, some lists do not say how many members are in a given group - a prerequisite for expert groups - raising doubts about how transparent the Commission is being.  The pan-European consumer group, BEUC, agreed with the report's findings that the commission's expert groups were overloaded with industry representatives. BEUC admitted to feeling 'railroaded' into agreeing to things and says the executive sometimes does not ask for their position on time, meaning they fail to influence policymaking.

Other Alter EU related report:

Commission review of lobby register brings minor improvements but fails to fix fundamental flaws

EU Links:

European Commission: Register of Expert Groups

European Commission: 2008 Commission Comitology Report [FR] [DE]

European Commission: Comitology Register

Link to ECRC's "Who is Who in Brussels"