Transparency
EU Track and Trace: the €100m failure
Despite European hopes being invested in the technology, contact tracing apps have only succeeded in tracking 5% of registered cases since they were introduced in the EU. The lack of public confidence in the scheme has proven to be an insurmountable hurdle.
Half of all MEPs do not disclose any meeting with lobbies
Regulation of the European Parliament is highly voluntary. Compared to 90 percent of Swedish, Danish or Finnish MEPs who disclose meetings with interest groups, only one out of ten Greek, Polish and Bulgarian MEPs do so.
Meetings on public health between European Commission and lobbies have been booming
Meetings with dozens of assistants and thousands of civil servants fly under the radar of the EU's transparency register. The heads of the pharmaceutical industry, EFPIA is one of the most active lobby groups. In less than a year and a half since the start of the pandemic they have held as many meetings with senior Commission officials as in the last five years.
Big Tech’s aggressive EU lobbying has caused a power shift
The drastic increase of lobbying expenditure by Big Tech companies is denting Europe’s traditionally strict privacy laws and shifting more power into the hands of corporations. And the COVID-19 is playing in the latter's hand.
Undress or fail: Instagram’s algorithm strong-arms users into showing skin
An exclusive investigation reveals that Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women, shaping the behavior of content creators and the worldview of 140 millions Europeans in what remains a blind spot of EU regulations.
Who lobbies the EU institutions (LobbyFacts)
LobbyFacts is a platform gathering the available data on lobbying at the EU level and on the organisations engaging in it, making it easy to use and filter the information.
Transparency and accountability of public administrations in Europe (EuroPAM)
A database curated by ERCAS collects data, information and legislation concerning the transparency and accountability of public officials in the EU member states.
Unpacking the Corruption Perception Index: A focus on the EU
According to the 2018 Corruption Perception Index by Transparency International, Nordic countries are again global leaders in the fight against corruption. But looking at the data since 2012, Baltic countries appear to be the rising stars.
Digiwhist: fighting corruption with open data on public procurement
New tools developed by a consortium of data-journalists, researchers and developers will allow anyone to follow closely the process of public procurement, and to spot potential problems.
