EUROPE

Euro-MP meets with African campaigners and pledges support for robust rules

BRUSSELS – The push for stronger transparency laws for oil, gas and mining companies is gathering pace. The European Parliament and Council are currently examining potentially groundbreaking legislation that would require all European listed as well as large private oil, gas, mining and logging companies to disclose the payments they make to governments around the world on a project by project basis.

You can also view the press release in PDF format

LONDON/STRASBOURG – Publish What You Pay, the global coalition of civil society groups, welcomes the European Commission’s proposals for EU laws that will require oil, gas, mining and logging companies to be more transparent about the payments they make to governments around the world.

Click here to download a copy of the report Piping Profits

Ten of the world’s most powerful oil, gas and mining companies own 6,038 subsidiaries and over a third of them are based in secrecy jurisdictions, a new Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Norway report today reveals.

Secrecy jurisdictions facilitate illicit financial flows, to which the developing world loses US$1 trillion a year.

View the press release in its original PDF format

European Parliament backs Publish What You Pay rules; sends strong signal to the European Commission

LONDON/STRASBOURG – Publish What You Pay, the global coalition of civil society groups, welcomes the European Parliament’s endorsement on Tuesday of plans for EU laws that will require oil, gas and mining companies to be more

The Publish What You Pay coalition strongly welcomes the announcement by the UK Government that it will push for the implementation of oil, gas and mining transparency laws in the EU. If introduced, such laws would require that companies listed in the EU publish what they pay to governments for the extraction of minerals around the world. This will improve revenue transparency, helping to eradicate the corruption that has blighted some mineral rich states and improve the lives of millions of people in the developing world.

Several Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have launched a petition against corruption. The petition calls for the European Commission and EU Member States to propose legislation and mechanisms to fight corruption, in particular in EU relations with third countries.

Publish What You Pay (PWYP) is pleased to see that of its five substantive points, the petition lists actions on transparency and revenue disclosure in the extractive industries.