More than a half of the members of the European Parliament do not report meetings with lobbyists, according to an analysis made by Transparency International.

“A new update to Transparency International EU’s Integrity Watch platform has revealed that only around 37% of Members of the European Parliament have published lobby meetings online since the start of this legislature, despite the European Parliament making a system available. 8,310 lobby meetings have been logged on the European Parliament website as of June 2019, with Members meeting businesses, NGOs and other interest representatives,” according to the information published by the Transparency International EU.

MEPs are encouraged but not obliged to publish meetings on a voluntary basis, i.e. outside of a specific report.

“MEPs from Sweden, Luxembourg, Finland, the Netherlands and Denmark are the most pro-active in using the new system, while those from Italy, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece and Cyprus barely registered any meetings.”

For instance, nine in ten MEPs from Sweden have declared their lobby meetings, while none of their colleagues from Cyprus or Croatia have done that.