Decision on the removal of Russian interest representatives from the Transparency Register

Priority question for written answer  P-002160/2022
to the Council
Rule 138
Zdzisław Krasnodębski (ECR), Witold Jan Waszczykowski (ECR), Christian Ehler (PPE), Miriam Lexmann (PPE), Ryszard Antoni Legutko (ECR), Dominik Tarczyński (ECR), Kosma Złotowski (ECR), Petras Auštrevičius (Renew), Karen Melchior (Renew), Marek Paweł Balt (S&D), Jacek Saryusz-Wolski (ECR), Sara Skyttedal (PPE), Radosław Sikorski (PPE), Beata Kempa (ECR), Elżbieta Kruk (ECR), Zbigniew Kuźmiuk (ECR), Evžen Tošenovský (ECR), Nathalie Loiseau (Renew)

In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Parliament has expressed its unequivocal support for Ukraine and called for sanctions against criminal regimes. Since 18 March 2022, diplomatic and government staff from Russia and Belarus have been denied access to Parliament. At the same time, the Parliament’s Bureau called on the Council and the Commission to remove Russian lobbyists from the Transparency Register, which is jointly managed by all three institutions. However, given the Council’s delay in responding to its request, Parliament has decided to act unilaterally and adopted its own decision to prohibit Russian interest representatives from entering its premises with immediate effect.

• 1.Why has Council failed to respond to Parliament’s proposal to jointly amend the Transparency Register in order to remove Russian interest representatives?
• 2.Is the removal of special interest representatives with close ties to the Russian Federation from the Register on the Council’s agenda?