Following the launch of the lobbying tools on EU Integrity Watch on 24 June, Transparency International now tracks all changes to the EU Transparency Register.
In a first edition of what is going to be a monthly update, we have seen over 650 updates to the register of EU lobbyists during the month of July. You can find our summary of all changes here.
The most substantial updates come from Volkswagen, the European Youth Forum and Cisco. Volkswagen for example went from €1 million annual expenditure on Brussels lobbying to €3.3 million. This increase also means that Volkswagen jumps from 49th to 9th in the ranking of companies and groups spending the most on EU lobbying. The new declaration that also provides much more detailed information on which files Volkswagen is seeking to influence also reveals that the number of full-time equivalent lobbyists has increased from 4 to 18; the number of persons involved in the EU lobbying activities has increased more than tenfold from 4 to 43.
Both the European Youth Forum and Cisco have also significantly increased the lobbying expenses they declare. The Youth Forum went from €50,000 to €1.5 million and Cisco from €0 to €900,000. In the case of Cisco this follows an official complaint by ALTER-EU to the Transparency Register Secretariat.
