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 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.
In this conversation, Ornaldo Gjergji (OBC Transeuropa), Martina Zaghi (Openpolis), and David Cabo (CIVIO) discuss the relations between public administrations and newsrooms, from data accessibility to transparency. And on how the COVID-19 pandemic may (or may not) have changed the state of play.
Exploring and improving the Aleph stack for journalistic open source research of public documents, regardless of their format or language. A post by Datactivist
In the second episode of EDJNet's Data Literacy podcast, Lorenzo Ferrari (OBC Transeuropa), Clara Guibourg (J++), and Alexander Damiano Ricci (VoxEurop) discuss what makes transnational data journalism special, from the variety of data sources to multilingualism. As well as the need for reasoned comparisons among countries, and the increasing relevance of local contexts.
As the EU sets its sights on harmonising taxation of the rising e-cigarette and heated tobacco products market, lobbyists fight to keep prices down and smokers hooked. The forthcoming negotiations are intertwined with the bitter competition between the two industry giants.
According to the annual assessment of the European Railway Agency, the trend of a steady decrease in the number of rail accidents continues. However, rail-related suicide rates remain roughly the same.
The various COVID-19 related lockdowns and closures of the EU’s borders have reduced mobility, particularly of migrants. First-time asylum applications fell by 37 percent between 2019 and November 2020.
Recently, the Croatian government presented a summary of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. This document is crucial for obtaining 49,08 billion kuna (6,5 billion Euros) from the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility to overcome the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and of earthquakes which hit Croatia last year.
Doctors continue prescribing anti-anxiety medications such as lorazepam or diazepam for long periods despite the risk of addictions. Meanwhile, under-investment in psychological care is making things worse.
