Lobby groups carry out a range of functions. These include:

Anti-corporate activists hold that the influence of big corporations is a detriment to the public good and to the democratic process. It should be recognized, however, that the EU legislates in many ways that restrict the actions of corporations and lawbreaking companies are usually punished in the form of monetary fines. In addition, from the perspective of business ethics, the point should be made that corporations are not, inherently more evil than any other groups and are no more likely to attempt unethical or illegal activity than other interest representatives.

Prior to the European elections, a campaign called ‘Politics for People’ was launched and coordinated by the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU). ALTER-EU seeks to expose and challenge the privileged access and influence enjoyed by corporations and their lobby groups in EU policy making. It sees rolling back corporate power and exposing greenwash as a precondition for adequately addressing global and European problems like poverty, climate change, social injustice, hunger and environmental degradation

Lob­by­ing is often mis­per­ceived by the pub­lic as a form of leg­al­ized cor­rup­tion. Crit­ics argue that the lack of trans­par­ency, exacer­bated by the influ­ence of lob­by­ists, hinders the demo­cratic legit­im­acy of law-making. How­ever, such a pre-judgment is based on exag­ger­ated assump­tions and there­fore, draws false con­clu­sions on the influ­ence and power of lobbyists.

As national leaders look towards nominating their candidate, they face a decision that will likely determine the future success or failure of the European project. If such a decision were to be degraded into nothing more than a power play between the European Council and the European Parliament, then citizens across the continent would be right to become ever more disillusioned with the EU project.

Here below we reproduce on extract of what Guillaume Xavier-Bender a Transatlantic Fellow based in the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States writes:

“The word ‘commemoration’ takes its true meaning: relating altogether; remembering together…. those who fought that day and the days after to liberate Europe and the true value and costs of European peace and unity.

Populist parties have established themselves with solid electorates. They now command a significant political weight and are capable of shifting mainstream political debate. This situation poses a growing political challenge to the process of European integration itself and mainstream political parties, which are portrayed by populists as self-serving and corrupt. Furthermore, anti-EU parties have prodded mainstream parties across the European Union to harden their stance on Europe

Definitions

Corruption continues to be a challenge for Europe. Affecting all EU Member States, corruption costs the European economy around 120 billion euros per year. Member States have taken many initiatives in recent years, but the results are uneven and more should be done to prevent and punish corruption. These are some of the conclusions from the first ever EU Anti-Corruption Report published in February 2014 by the European Commission.

Lobbying defined as ‘any communication, written or oral between a representative or an interest group and a public decision maker in order to influence decision-making’, plays an increasingly important role in the public decision-making process. Other terms are sometimes used, such as advocacy, influence strategies, representation of interests, public or government affairs etc.

Conference