On the Transparency Road, with the Handbrake Engaged (European Transparency Initiative in Natural Resources)

The study at hand aims at understanding the "twisted fate" of the EU's initiative to provide transparency of payments in oil, gas, and mining deals. The European Commission in October 2011 followed the lead of the US Dodd-Frank Act in establishing strict disclosure requirements for businesses in the extractive industries. Its initiative demanded annual reporting of any payments made by such enterprises to public authorities of commodity exporting countries, in order to mitigate corruption of public officials via transparency of payments. Praised by NGOs, the initiative was heavily opposed by the German government and experienced efforts by the very same to water its efficacy down. Germany's uncompromising position prolonged the search for an agreement between Council of Ministers and European Parliament until April 2013. It is hypothesized that the German opposition originates in highly effective interest representation of influential domestic actors, dismissive of a tight transparency regime. To validate this, Moravcsik's Liberal Intergovernmentalism is the theoretical framework of choice. At its core lies a genuine two-step of domestic societal actors, upgrading their particular interests to "national preferences" and the subsequent agency of their governments in rational bargaining with others. However, in order for this to apply in European everyday politics, theoretical amendments have to be made. Namely, the originally disregarded influence of supranational institutions as well as a shift of bargaining arenas has to be sufficiently respected by the theoretical frame.