(Brussels) “Transparency”: this is the goal of an idea put forward today by the European Commission, whereby anyone who wants to meet a delegate of the EU institutions must first be a member of a special registry. So that any form of lobbyist activity may be checked out, and the transparency and legitimacy of the EU’s law-making and decision-making process may be protected. The EU Commission has already adopted this practice, and now it asks that it be extended to the EU Parliament and EU Council as well. “The EU Commission has already set an example by making meetings with its law-makers conditional on the stakeholders’ membership of a publicly-accessible transparency registry”, a note says. “Today, we ask the European Parliament and the European Council to do the same, making such registry compulsory for any stakeholder that tries to affect the decision-making process in Brussels”. The first deputy president, Frans Timmermans, explains: “The EU institutions must help regain the citizens’ trust. Everything we do must be more open. The citizens are entitled to know who is trying to affect the EU decision-making process”. So, “we have come up with a simple rule: no meetings with the law-makers unless you are a member of the registry” to show “who is lobbying, whom they represent, and how much they spend”.