Russia needs the strength of the West and Western expertise to keep the country relatively modern and strong. But at the same time it can be strongonly with a consolidated government, economy and security service.

The first Russian weakness is that it is surrounded by great powers from which it is not insulated by geographic barriers. The second weakness is that its population is comprised of numerous ethnic groups, not all of which are happy with centralized Kremlin rule. A strong hand is the only means to consolidate the country internally while repelling outsiders.

What happens now that EU leaders have signed off on the fiscal compact treaty in Brussels? The first step is that the text will be translated into all 23 official EU languages (including Irish) and lawyers in each member state (26 since the UK is not participating) will check the legal compatibility in the relevant language. That process should take a month, then it will be signed at the next EU summit at the beginning of March.

Russia's support for Syria dates back to the days of the Soviet Union. The continuing partnership can be attributed to several factors- historic ties, economic interests and geopolitics. Recent Russian arms sales to Syria are worth $ 4 billion, including fighter jets and advanced missiles. Russian business investments in Syria encompassing infrastructure,energy and tourism amount to nearly $ 20 billion. A natural gas processing plant about 200 kilometres east of Homs is being constructed by Stroytransgaz, a Russian company.

Globalization presents challenges that demand a new perspective on public affairs. The global economy has shaped a new business-government relationship, blunting the regulatory capacity of governments and introducing greater complexity to the design of public policies to promote important social goals.

While the European Commission and the European Parliament are to be commended for having jointly established a 'Transparency Register', the point remains that making information publicly available does not automatically make information useful. Indeed, for transparency policy to be effective, the information must be both easy to understand and easy to utilize. Users must be able to register their choices clearly, and disclosers must have the ability and incentive to respond meaningfully.

Lobbyists, Public Affairs and Government Relations professionals need to get their act together. Without an organised education base and compulsory continuous professional development (CPD), it will never be a profession.

AALEP has elaborated the most comprehensive framework to-date for professional development in Lobbying, Public Affairs and Government Relations. The framework comprises 1. Essential Knowledge required including over 100 courses broken down by topics  2. Required Skills and 3. Required Abilities. Possessing the right academic and professional qualifications as a knowledge base is what will enable practitioners to practice the profession professionally.

In order to further the professional development of lobbying, public affairs and government relations practitioners there is a need for the establishment of steady development of approved curricula. Exclusive academic and/or professional qualifications must be clearly set up to demonstrate the substantial and rigorous knowledge and skills of the profession. Qualifying examinations should be offered to evaluate the levels of practitioners’ competencies and continuous professional development should be mandatory for all members to expand their knowledge and skills.

Today in Europe, Lobbying, Public Affairs (PA) and Government Relations (GR) practitioners suffer from low recognition, a shortage of qualified practitioners, a lack of regulation and a lack of credibility. Althoug the industry has grown at a fast pace, especially at the Brussels level, the profession has not yet matured in terms of achieving professional status in the eyes of society as a whole. It is precisely due to the lack of any appropriate regulations that quasi-lobbying in many member states is perceived as an activity which is illegitimate, privy of a narrow circle and latent.

According to Alexa, AALEP website receives 588 visitors per day. The time spent in a typical visit to the site is roughly ten minutes, with 52 seconds spent on each pageview. Visitors to the site view 3.8 unique pages each day on average. Aalep.eu has a bounce rate of about 14% (i.e., 14% of visits consist of only one pageview). 91% of the site's visitors are in Belgium, where it has attained a traffic rank of 3,261 (a rough estimate of aalep.eu's popularity in a specific country.