?Can Experts be trusted

אורן פרז (פורסם לראשונה בבלוגו 'Regulatory Paradoxes')

The EU is highly dependent on its network of experts. . The EU Commission is advised by about 1000 expert groups, which assemble more than 30,000 experts (for updated info: http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regexpert/index.cfm).

But can this network be trusted? Despite recent reforms there seems to be grounds for concerns.  A report by the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU), which looked at all the expert groups established between 20 September 2012 and 20 September 2013, criticized the Commission for failing to meet us its commitment to reform the experts consultation process, noting that “Across all newly created Expert Groups, there are more corporate representatives than all other stakeholders combined” (http://www.alter-eu.org/documents/2013/11/a-year-of-broken-promises). A paper by Robinson et al criticizes EFSA for its failure to properly regulate conflict of interests in its risk assessment process, focusing on the example of GMO food (Claire Robinson, et al., Conflicts of interest at the European Food Safety Authority erode public confidence, 67 Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health  717-720 2013). See also the European Court of Auditors. Management of conflict of interest in selected EU agencies: Special report no. 15. Luxembourg, 2012.

This data which could be more easily extracted with the use of the new experts registry raises worries of intensive influence by corporate interests on the EU expert-network.

Regulatory reaction to this problem remains relatively thin…