HOW TO SKIRT EU LOBBYING RULES

Politico Europe recently published an Article entitled ‘Five easy ways to skirt the EU lobbying rules’. Frankly, a better contribution from Politico would have been to publish an article devoted to the prevention of loopholes or avoiding unintended consequences. There will always an ambiguity that can be used to circumvent or otherwise avoid the express or implied intent of rules. There will always be people who do not want to follow the rules . Such people will be looking for any way to get themselves out from under the provisions of rules , looking for any loophole in them, looking for any way that the rules can be interpreted so that they will not have to do what the rule say and comply with the intent of the rules.

From our perspective the better approach is to teach and encourage good behavior and ethical virtues for their own sake. When the inevitable loophole opens up in the rules, when the opportunity to gain at someone else’s expense is there and nobody will ever know, it is the ethical, not the compliant, who will do the right thing.

Politico’s Encouragements

James Panichi and Quentin Aries of POLITICO Europe, “You’re a lobbyist in Brussels and you’re perplexed by the European Union’s new rules on transparency. You long for the days when you could work in the shadows, chat up officials, take long liquid lunches. The days before Jean-Claude Juncker rode into the Berlaymont demanding greater transparency. Don’t worry. In some ways the good, old days are still here

1. Hire a Lawyer because lawyers can protect their clients’ identities while lobbyists cannot
2. Aim low: The new transparency rules require that Commissioners, their political staff and the most senior civil servants, departmental heads report all of their interactions with lobbyists. But that leaves thousands of other people one can still meet without reporting it, and many have the power to help.
3. Meet off-line: The Commission’s decision on the mandatory reporting of meetings with lobbyists, approved in November 2014, describes a meeting as a bilateral encounter organised at the initiative of an organisation or self-employed individual to discuss an issue related to policymaking and implementation in the Union. But the regulation adds that encounters of a purely private or social character or spontaneous encounters are excluded from this. The spontaneity of an encounter gives lobbyists some wiggle room, particularly in their dealings with members of Commissioners’ cabinets, who are likely to get out and about more often. There will be conferences to attend often held by industry groups or catch-ups outside the office.
4. Play dial an Ambassador: The Council where important decisions are made by ministers from the EU’s 28 Member States, offers little in the way of transparency and wants to keep it that way. Internal documents have shown that the Council has no intention of signing up to the transparency regime or, if it is eventually forced by public pressure, it will allow it to extend only to its officials. Council officials don’t have any influence and most lobbyists don’t bother getting in touch. The real low hanging fruit are the Permanent Representatives. The larger ‘Perm Reps’ are staffed by capable diplomats who know policy details inside and out. They are accessible and more importantly all in Brussels. Unless there is something controversial on the agenda, ministers usually just show up at Council meetings and sign off on whatever the Perm Reps put in front of them.
5. Get comitological: Comitology is the art of implementing EU policy that has been signed, sealed and delivered by the institutions. Lobbyists are increasingly taking advantage of the process. Delegated acts are opaque, there is no register and no centralized website to see who does what. This means that lobbyists need to find out which pieces of legislation will require the establishment of delegated acts, then, after identifying the right official to contact it is possible to have a real impact on the process. Lobbyists see comitology as a chance to offer under-staffed departments with some real technical expertise in the implementation of law.

Remedy

Remedy

The public is entitled to know that lobbying is occurring, to ascertain who is involved, and, in the absence of any overriding public interest against disclosure, to know what occurred during the lobbying. By registering those actively seeking to influence government policies, laws, regulations, missions, programmes, and projects, the public will have a better insight into government decisions, and who they might benefit. Greater disclosure would both make the lobbying business more transparent and improve its reputation.

1. Lobbyists should file regular reports that include the names of anyone involved in planning, directing or coordinating a lobbying effort, even if they themselves are not making many direct contacts. The reporting requirement would specifically extend to any former senior EU official with any involvement at all in a lobbying campaign.
2. Lobbyists should be required to disclose more information about their activities such as specific contacts and the subjects of their lobbying. Without this kind of information, it is nearly impossible to understand the nature of the lobbying and the true impact it has on policy and legislative decision-making.
3. Companies should be required to more fully report who they've hired as part of their broader lobbying support activities, and specifically which EU offices, Parliament committees, their lobbyists have contacted.
4. Enforcement of the rules should be entrusted to a suitable administrative authority with rule-making and enforcement powers.
5. The EU institutions should be required to report communications with lobbyists on policy matters