Transparency International –
EU integrity watch
“Where is all the money coming from, where is all the money going,” says a notorious song of the musician Cody Chessnutt. Indeed this is a big point, also in the European Parliament.
We campaigned with Transparency International to help them state that knowledge is power, and transparency is the best ground to grow good policy.
EU Integrity Watch aims to help rebuild the trust in European Institutions and become the central web portal for monitoring such institutions’ integrity and transparency. It shall allow citizens, journalists and civic organizations to control their representatives and to hold them accountable for their actions and decisions.
Interface
We helped to build a powerful tool with a user-friendly interface that provides a comprehensive overview of the outside activities and incomes of the members of the newly elected European Parliament and data visualization to browse the database.
Why is this tool so powerful?
Because it contributes to increase transparency, equality and integrity of access to EU decision-making process and to monitor EU institutions for potential and actual conflicts of interest, undue influence or even corruption.
Tools
Two categories are central in this project: Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and lobbyists working in Brussels.
The website includes three sections:
– a tool to monitor lobbyists and MEPs meetings where all data are gathered and visualized in charts and schemes to let easily understand all the points of contact and recurrences
– a tool to monitor lobbyists’ behaviours and data, such as expenses, categories, accreditations
– a tool to monitor that all external incomes received by MEPs are “correct” and that no conflicts of interest are occurring
Results
The website received immediate attention from all over Europe and it was widely mentioned in the international press: BBC, the Economist, WSJ, Spiegel, Le Monde, El Pais, Corriera della Sera, Huffington Post, Le Soir, Euronews, German public television ARD, Radio France Internationale, and many more.