Ms Emily O'Reilly:

Self-declarations are a bit like voluntary declarations and so on. Sometimes they work. Most people are honourable and do it but sometimes they do not work. Very often, one begins with voluntary and ends with mandatory. This is why these things have to be transparent. We often see this in the aftermath of a scandal. For example, with the European Parliament, things that were voluntary have had to be made mandatory and things had to be tightened up. One of the pieces we did in relation to CAP was around who lobbies on the CAP and whether the Commission is open to environmental concerns. I am not saying that farmers and the agricultural sector are not interested in the environment - of course they are - but we were looking at whether the Commission is hearing as much from the NGO and environmental sector as much as it is hearing from the industrial side. My view is in favour of having whatever works but because people are always going to screw the system and find some way of getting around it, one very often finds it is easier to make things mandatory. For example, there is a transparency register in Brussels where people are supposed to register as lobbyists and so on. It has moved from being voluntary to being effectively mandatory because voluntary was simply not working. People were hiding and not playing the game. They were lobbying in secret and trying to do it in the shadows. That was not good.