Following the recent revelations of the Uber Files, calls for increased transparency around lobbying regulation have intensified, placing French authorities under the spotlight.
The Uber Files, the recent investigation that laid bare the ways in which the company broke the law and secretly lobbied international governments, has sparked a global debate on how to better regulate the relationships between public officials and corporate lobbyists.
French President Emmanuel Macron was implicated in the files, having been allegedly involved as a “partner” with Uber during his time as the economy minister between 2014 and 2016.
Despite no evidence of corruption having emerged – as emphasised by Olivia Grégoire, minister for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), it is part of the minister’s function to meet with such economic players – the revelations prompted cross-party calls for more accountability and transparency. Marine Le Pen’s far-right party Rassemblement National and the new left-wing alliance NUPES both agreed that the affair is “a state scandal.”
Uber Files gives new impetus to discussions on platform workers directive
The ongoing negotiations around the future directive on platform workers, which could ultimately reclassify many of them as employees, could well gain momentum after the revelations of the Uber files highlighting affinity between Emmanuel Macron and the American company, and while France has been dragging its move the file forward in the Council.
Legitimate call for more transparency
“There is a legitimate expectation from citizens” that public actors should improve their “ethics” when meeting with lobbyists, Sylvain Waserman, former MP for Macron’s party and Vice President of the National Assembly in charge of lobbies, told EURACTIV.
In 2021, Waserman published a report calling for the disclosure of MPs’ schedules as well as the sourcing of amendments.
“It is imperative to engage with lobbies, despite the archaism of some politicians who suggest that any meeting is a potential source of corruption,” he said. Nevertheless, “conditions for a free and unbiased judgment” are necessary as “any politician must, based on the analyses of the various lobbies, make decisions in the public interest”.
Macron at centre of Uber Files investigation
French President Emmanuel Macron backed the economic development of US company Uber in France and signed a secret “deal” when he was economy minister between 2014 to 2016, an international media investigation known as the “Uber Files” published on Sunday …
Inspired by the European institutions
The recommendations proposed by Waserman were modelled on the European Commission’s code of ethics: according to Article 7 of the Code of Conduct for Members of the European Commission, Commissioners may only meet with organisations that are registered in the transparency register and are required to publicly disclose their meetings.
In the European Parliament, Transparency International France (TI-F) found that in 2020, 58% of French MEPs included their meetings with lobbyists in their public schedules.
“A little more transparency might have prevented a crisis,” Kévin Gernier, advocacy officer at TI-F, told EURACTIV. “The EU is a pioneer on transparency issues in politics,” he said, adding that modelling the approach on that of Brussels might lead to a healthier and more constructive debate in France.
Lobbyists in Brussels must indicate how much they spend, the purpose of their lobbying activities and the type of lobbying they do. Unlike in France, lobbyists must also “outline the main legislative proposals or EU policies” they are targeting, according to an analysis by the French High Authority for Transparency in Public Life (HATVP).
One legislative approach in the works in France is the reform of the implementation and granularity of the so-called “Sapin II” regulation of 2016, which enshrines in law the creation of a digital directory of interest representatives, in which any lobby is required to register, or else risk being sanctioned.
Bolstering the digital directory would bring it more in line with Brussels’ register, which, according to Waserman, “rightly focuses on what lobbies ‘do’ rather than what they ‘are’.”
The Greens are reportedly hard at work on such a bill, according to sources contacted by EURACTIV.
Overcoming ‘inertia and outright hostility’
Despite heated calls for greater transparency following the Uber files, Gernier highlighted a notable reluctance to make progress on the issue.
“We are faced with a mixture of inertia and outright hostility” on the part of some public officials, Gernier said, pinpointing Justice Minister Eric Dupont-Moretti and the government’s former Secretary General Marc Guillaume, who is said to have worked to strip the 2016 implementing decree of its substance.
But the lawmakers, who seem to favour greater transparency, could well be the vector for change. “MPs are fed up with being subject to permanent suspicion” from their fellow citizens, Gernier concluded.
MEPs seek to extend funding for political parties beyond EU
MEPs want to expand the remit of the law on European political parties to allow them to register and obtain funding in countries outside the EU, under a proposal adopted on Wednesday (13 July).
Source: euractiv.com
