In most European countries the influence of lobbyists is shrouded in secrecy. When undertaken with integrity and transparency lobbying is a legitimate avenue for interest groups to be involved in the deliberative process of law making. It is when lobbying is non-transparent and regulated that problems arise.

The role of regulation of lobbying is to make the public aware of the interests behind proposals and the links between lobbyists and policy makers.

The European Commission for Democracy through Law - better known as the Venice Commission as it meets in Venice - is the Council of Europe's advisory body on constitutional matters. The role of the Venice Commission is to provide legal advice to its member states and, in particular, to help states wishing to bring their legal and institutional structures into line with European standards and international experience in the fields of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

For the Assembly of the Council of Europe extra-institutional actors may include trade unions, constituted advisory bodies, the business community, interest and pressure groups, advocacies, lobbies and networks of influence. Furthermore, the media play also an important part in the political process. The Assembly strongly supports political pluralism as one of the key principles of a genuine democracy. Therefore it notes that, under some conditions, activities of extra-institutional actors may be beneficial for the functioning of a democratic political system insofar as these actors:

Here below is an article written by Jean-Joseph Boillot, Economic Advisor on Emerging Countries at the CEPII Institute, Centre de recherche français dans le domaine de l'économie internationale.

A third country is the term used by the European Commission to define any country of the world that is NOT one of the 28 EU (European Union) member States and EEA-EFTA (European Economic Area - European Free Trade Association) states (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway).

Nelson Mandela once explained Ubuntu as follows: "A traveller through a country would stop at a village and he didn't have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food and attend him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu, but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not enrich themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?"

Statsnext reports that our Website www.aalep.eu ranks Nr 409 103 in the world among 30 million domains based on Alexa traffic ranking. Our website is very popular in Belgium where its has a traffic rank of 2 472. Our website gets roughly 8 506 visitors daily. 

There are six different steps in the political decision-making process:  Agenda Setting, Drafting of Policy, Decision-Making, Implementation of Policy, Monitoring and Reformulation of Policy. Each step offers opportunities for NGOs and public authorities to interact.

NGOs target public authorities which includes parliament, government and public administration at local, regional, national, EU and international level.

The term civil participation refers to organised civil society including voluntary groups, non-profit organisations, associations, foundations, charities, as well as geographic or interest-based community and advocacy groups. The core activities of NGOs are focused on values of social justice, human rights, democracy and the rule of law. In these areas the purpose of NGOs is to promote causes and improve the lives of people.

Here below are the key stakeholders involved in Public Policy Advocacy matters and related areas in Romania.

1. Romanian Lobby Registry Association (RLRA)