A GR Practitioner must possess the following knowledge, skills and abilities and be able to explain and demonstrate that he or she can perform the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodation, using some other combination of skills and abilities.

Political advocacy, or lobbying is of paramount importance to ensuring that political decision-makers understand the implications of the legislation they adopt. The EU’s political system is a very open one where most decision-makers, be it civil servants in the European Commission or politicians in the European Parliament, appreciate input from external stakeholders and are open to facts and arguments. This input makes for better legislation.

But advocacy must be transparent and ethical to have the required effect. The EU Transparency Register is one step in the right direction.

The establishment of a mandatory lobby register at the EU level would require the adoption of a regulation through the ordinary legislative procedure or the special procedure provided in Article 352 TFEU. In both cases, the European Commission would need to propose such a regulation and the Council would have to approve of it (unanimously) and only with the consent of Parliament in Article 352 TFEU and acting on the basis of a qualified majority vote as co-legislator with Parliament in the ordinary legislative procedure.

The European Commission seeks the views of all interested parties on the performance of the current Transparency Register for organisations and self-employed individuals engaged in EU policy-making and policy implementation and on its future evolution towards a mandatory scheme covering the European Parliament, the Council of the EU and the European Commission.

PART A

1. Transparency and the EU

GR Practitioners just like lawyers, doctors, teachers and other professions are bound by professional codes of conduct or by contracts that contain standards of conduct. A GR professional who fails the duties required of the profession may be judged incompetent and subject to a disciplinary board or an employer may terminate employment. 

Lack of preparation is one aspect of incompetence

AALEP believes that GR Practitioners should demonstrate their professional skills by meeting high minimum standards of competency in the field of Government Relations prior to being registered in either a voluntary or mandatory lobby register. It is up to our profession to set out minimum professional standards for persons providing GR  services in order to ensure that consumers of GR services obtain a minimum acceptable level of competence from individuals acting for and on behalf of firms in the provision of advice and associated GR activities.

Over a 3 year cycle, members of a GR Association would be required to complete 3 activities from any of the 4 following categories:

1. Contributions to the profession,
2. Peer and professional interaction,
3. Management/leadership training
4. Contributions to technical knowledge;

plus one formal course or one full informal course or self-directed study from either the management/leadership training or technical knowledge categories.

There are a number of key features of CPD that frame the delivery of effective programmes:

It is hereby recommended that GR Associations formulate a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) strategy and that individual GR professionals take personal responsibility for maintaining their skills and capabilities through lifelong learning.  

What is CPD?

As of May 2015, at least 20 countries worldwide have a specific lobbying regulation in place at the national level, though the quality of regulation varies widely. Even though lobbying regulations are found mostly in industrialised regions, they are relevant for any country: lobbying scandals all around the world including in developing countries are testimony to the need for better regulation and a number of publications launched in recent years are proof of the growing interest in lobbying regulation.