Brussels, 13 February 2008

EURO COOP is the European Association of Consumer Cooperatives. Our primary objectives include representing to the EU institutions the interests of consumer cooperatives and their 23 million consumer-members across 17 European countries.

Euro Coop welcomes the Commission’s Transparency Initiative and is fully supportive of what has been proposed towards greater transparency at the EU level, successively in the Green Paper ‘European Transparency Initiative’ and in the Communication ‘Follow-up to the Green Paper’.

Consumer cooperatives are democratic and responsible organisations, within which consumers act as citizens and participate actively in the decision-making process. Consumer co-operatives, and among them Euro Coop, are therefore responsible to their consumermembers and have to account for their financial resources, governance and activities. As democratic organisations, consumer cooperatives and Euro Coop are, of course, in favour of more transparency in the European Union decision-making process.

Euro Coop is already registered in CONNECS, European Parliament data base, and has always shown willingness to publish information about its members and financial resources, although it was not compulsory. Euro Coop is only financed by members’ fees and has a policy of full transparency.

Consumer cooperatives are responsible actors in the European economic and social world, which base their activities on shared values of social responsibility, self help and self responsibility.

Bolstered by these values and its democratic ideals, Euro Coop commits to adhere to a registry of stakeholder organisations and provide all the necessary relevant information that may be required by the European Commission;

As far as the Code of Conduct is concerned, Euro Coop agrees with all the principles and rules proposed. Nevertheless we feel that:

• There should be more effective sanctions for breaches of the code of conduct.

Given that the registry is voluntary, it is not sufficient to be suspended or excluded from the register. There has to be some added-value in following the code and penalties for not complying (e. g. “name and shame” sanctions).

Finally, Euro Coop calls on all other interest organisations to adhere to such rules in order to make the system transparent, comprehensive and more effective.

For more information please contact:

Rodrigo Gouveia, Secretary General, Euro Coop
Tel: +32 (0)2 285 00 70
E-mail: infoateurocoop.coop