eti - The Initiative

The Initiative

The aim of ETI is...to dry out political swamps and to venture new democracy.

The European Transparency-Initiative (ETI) is living commitment.
The ETI particularly wants to throw light onto the EU-shadow-world.
The ETI wants more democracy.

The founder and speaker of the ETI is the Austrian member of the European Parliament Hans-Peter Martin, who launched the initiative in 2000. To start off, the performance records of EU-deputies were made public from January 2004 on. Reports on the EU-allowances scandal followed.

The ETI wants to open the access to often hidden information that is important to citizens who are concerned about democracy.

It aims for the access of all European citizens to as many EU-documents as possible, and the access of the public to EU-meetings.

The Freedom of Information Act in the USA and general principles of transparency in Scandinavian countries should also be valid for EU-institutions and EU-officials.

Privacy has to be protected, and possible security concerns must also be taken into account.

But there must not be any more excuses for retaining information from citizens in which interest is justified - Particularly not when it concerns the use of tax payers' money.

In cases of the refusal of information, standard plaints are planned based on the idea that the use of tax money has to be carried out completely transparently.

The ETI fosters referendums for important decisions, such as the EU-Constitution or the possible joining of Turkey.

The ETI will further concentrate on informing about lobbying and particularly about the military-industrial complex that is currently developing on the EU-level.

Thus, the ETI wants to bring in some ideas for a new orientation of democracy in times of globalisation and modern communication technologies.

The ETI co-operates with scientists, editors, committed citizens and parliamentarians from different countries. Information also comes from inside Brussels' bureaucratic system.

The ETI is also involved with frankness and disclosure of EU-documents.

The ETI wants to open closed doors. Because knowledge is the key to more democracy.

Strasbourg, October 27, 2004

Contact: office@eti.info

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