The proposed EU data protection regulation is currently being looked at by the European Parliament, and it is there that lobbying is taking place, by U.S. multinationals like eBay and Amazon, Facebook and Google, as well as digital technology lobby platform Digital Europe whose members include all the big IT names like Apple, Blackberry and Microsoft and Amcham EU, the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union.

LobbyPlag (a blending of lobby and plagiarism) aims to be an open source European tool on lobbying or should it be anti-lobbying? The platform will have the following features:

U.S. companies are discovering that the hottest spot in the lobbying and advocacy world is suddenly Brussels.

As an illustration: The American Chamber of Commerce to the EU has 9 registered lobbyists;  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce maintains an ofice in Brussels; Google has 7 registered lobbyist and spends about $ 1 million in lobbing activities; Facebook has 3 registered lobbyists and spends about half a million dollars on lobbying; Microsoft has 17 registered lobbyists.

It can hardly be denied that lobbying faces an extremely bad reputation amongst the public at large in Europe. The term lobbyist is seen by many as an insult, and lobbying is often considered an illegitimate or distasteful activity. Reports in the media are usually negative about lobbying. Critics’ main objections are a lack of transparency in lobbying, implied links between lobbying and corruption and that lobbying lacks legitimacy or indeed even that it poses a threat to democracy.

En date du 12 février dernier, la chaîne ARTE a diffusé un reportage d'une trentaine de minutes intitulé 'Dans l'antichambre du pouvoir' visant à mieux comprendre comment les lobbyistes allemands et français influent sur les décisions prises par les parlementaires.

De mon point de vue, le reportage de ARTE est

1. Un programme réducteur qui n'explique pas le travail d'un lobbyiste

2." Donner la bonne information à la bonne personne", cela ne valide pas la profession de lobbyiste qui va bien au-delà

While the European Union leaders may have reached an agreement on a 2014-2020 budget fixing the bloc's spending at € 960 billion, the deal must now be approved by the European Parliament.

Securing parliamentary approval is likely to take several months and is far from guaranteed. Leading European Parliament political groups are unanimous on refusing this budget because in their views it will not reinforce European competitivenes and may even lessen it. They also contend that the proposed budget will lead to a structural deficit.

The EU budget represents about 1% of the member states’ total GDP. For 2013 the EU budget amounts to € 132.8 bn.

The leaders of the 27 member states plus Croatia – set to join the EU in July – will begin their two-day summit in Brussels on Thursday (7 February). Following the customary exchange of views with Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, the leaders will hold a first plenary session on the EU's next seven-year budget, followed by bilateral consultations.

Cuts are planned for research, cross-border infrastructure, development aid and foreign policy development 

The Global Competitiveness Index (2012-2013) produced by the World Economic Forum lists the following European countries among the top 10. The ranking includes 144 countries.

Ranking

1          Switzerland

3          Finland

4          Sweden

5          Netherlands

6          Germany

8          UK

12        Denmark

15        Norway

16        Austria           

17        Belgium

21        France

22        Luxembourg

27        Ireland

34        Estonia

The challenge for ASEAN civil societies is to push demands for good governance covering the political, economic, social and cultural spheres and for the reforms undertaken to be as concrete and time specific as possible. There is a need for bottom-up not top-down governance.