Europese Commissie publiceert lijst met geraadpleegde experts voor opstellen EU-beleid (en)

The European Commission has set up a public register of the expert groups that help it in preparing legislative proposals and policy initiatives. The new register covers formal and informal advisory bodies. It provides information on the nature and tasks of each group, and indicates which department within the Commission is responsible for overseeing the group.

"We are committed to shining a light on the way decisions in Brussels are taken", said European Commission President, José Manuel Barroso i: "The Commission is fortunate to be able to draw on a wide range of advice and expertise. It is only normal that the public should have more information about who is helping to shape EU policies. This new register ensures a more open administration and contributes to the overall objective of Better Regulation."

The Commission maintains a high level of in-house expertise, but it is also able to draw on external specialists to help in often very diverse and technical areas from the setting of targets for air quality, to authorising cosmetic products, establishing automobile safety standards, determining sustainable fish catches, developing strategies to tackle unemployment or public health concerns, or designing European research programmes.

The new register provides an overview of the groups which help the Commission and follows up the Commission's 2002 Guidelines on the collection and use of expertise^[1]. It provides basic information on the groups' tasks, the lead service in the Commission and the general composition of the group. It covers a total of around 1.300 expert groups. The exact number varies over time as different groups are created and others are wound up after completing their tasks.

The register classifies the participants in broad categories (scientists, academics, practitioners, industry, NGOs...) but it does not contain any information on individual experts, mainly for data protection and privacy reasons^[2]. Nonetheless, in some cases, and providing that formal data protection requirements have been respected, links to information about the identity of members of specific groups will be included in the register. For example, when the selection of members of an expert group acting in their personal capacity is subject to a call for applications and the results have been published.

The new register provides information on expert groups, created by the Commission to help it in its day to day work. However, it does not cover the 250 so called "comitology committees" which are established by under EU rules to assist the Commission in using its executive powers to implement legislation, nor the joint bodies resulting from international agreements to supervise their implementation. Detailed information about the work of the comitology committees and the joint bodies is available on the Commission's site on the EUROPA server (see links below)

The new register delivers on a commitment made by President Barroso to the European Parliament at the beginning of his mandate.

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The register of expert groups is located at the following address:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/secretariat_general/regexp/

The register of comitology is located at the following address:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/secretariat_general/regcomito/
A list of Joint Entities resulting from international agreements is located at the following address:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/secretariat_general/joint_entities/index_fr.htm

^[1] COM(2002)713 of 11 December 2002

^[2] Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions and bodies and on the free movement of such data, Official Journal L 008, 12/01/2001 P. 0001 - 0022