REBUTTAL TO THE LOBBYING CRITICS

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.

First and fore­most, the pub­lic cur­rently does not have a com­pre­hens­ive defin­i­tion of lob­by­ing per se. First, the art of lob­by­ing enhances the com­pet­i­tion of con­vic­tions. Through the con­struct­ive pro­cess of debate, the cor­rect path can be found with the guar­an­tee that the stronger and better-qualified argu­ments will dic­tate the decision-making pro­cess. The fal­la­cious pub­lic opin­ion assumes that all lob­by­ists are part of a cabal, col­lab­or­at­ing on vicious schemes against the pub­lic interests. How­ever, it is often for­got­ten that com­pet­i­tion within the lob­by­ing industry is, in fact, fierce and cruel. Second, lob­by­ing bridges the private sec­tor with the polit­ical and legis­lat­ive realm. Because the private sec­tor uses a lan­guage dif­fer­ent from the polit­ical spec­trum (profit incent­ive vs. pur­suit of pub­lic good), the task of a lob­by­ist is to medi­ate between these two sides using a lan­guage that both are cap­able of under­stand­ing. Fur­ther­more, given the con­straints of policy-makers’ resources -most not­ably time- obtain­ing rel­ev­ant data and empir­ical know­ledge is lim­ited. There­fore, the role of the lob­by­ist ini­ti­at­ive is to provide such crit­ical inform­a­tion, which would oth­er­wise be dif­fi­cult to acquire. After all, the most import­ant aspect of policy-making is the use of know­ledge that is available.

Admit­tedly, the gen­eral pub­lic has stig­mat­ized the lob­by­ing industry with the help of myopic journ­al­ism. Whenever journ­al­ists write about the power of lob­by­ists, they have rarely spoken dir­ectly to the people involved in the pro­cess. Nor have they been present in the nego­ti­ations between the stake­hold­ers. There­fore, the media has a tend­ency to exacer­bate dif­fer­ent cases without con­crete evid­ence or facts. Fur­ther­more, journ­al­ists have little incent­ive to invest­ig­ate highly suc­cess­ful pro­jects, which were estab­lished through the effect­ive col­lab­or­a­tion of the legis­lat­ive and lob­by­ing bod­ies. Such a det­ri­mental atti­tude is bound to cre­ate a myriad of biased con­clu­sions, which unfor­tu­nately, dic­tate the pub­lic view. Per­haps the incon­veni­ent truth for many is that the world bene­fits from good decision-makers, who are con­nec­ted to vari­ous stake­hold­ers’ views, exper­i­ences and recom­mend­a­tions. Con­sequently, effect­ive lob­by­ing may in fact drastic­ally reduce the prob­ab­il­ity of inform­a­tion asym­met­ries between the parties involved. Nev­er­the­less, meas­ur­ing the suc­cess of lob­by­ing is sel­dom pos­sible in terms of quant­it­at­ive tools. The only evid­ence of effect­ive lob­by­ing is the decision-makers’ con­sist­ent accept­ance of valid and qual­ity argu­ment­a­tions from the lob­by­ing bodies.

Cit­izens, busi­nesses, NGOs and civil ser­vants have the respons­ib­il­ity to avoid accept­ing gov­ern­ment pro­pos­als or lob­by­ist argu­ments without an act­ive par­ti­cip­a­tion. In other words, noth­ing should be taken only on its face value. Fur­ther­more, lob­by­ing always involves at least two entit­ies: the lob­by­ist and the lob­bied. There­fore, lob­by­ing should be con­sidered as a pivotal part of “good gov­ernance”, which sheds light on the topic, pro­ject or legis­la­tion that is being lob­bied. Unfor­tu­nately, the pub­lic suf­fers from an intel­lec­tual iner­tia, which assumes, that lob­by­ing always and neces­sar­ily has a pro­cliv­ity to pur­sue only the interests of the private sec­tor.

Media reports claim that there are around 30,000 lobbyists in Brussels, almost as many as there are staff at the Commission, and that these 'shadowy activists', as one news story put it, can influence up to 75% of EU legislation. Given these figures, it is easy to see why European citizens might be disillusioned with the EU: if this were true, it would mean that the institutions that are meant to put citizens at the very heart of what they do would be doing entirely the opposite. Thankfully, of course, this is far from being the case. It seems to me that the presumption is that any Commission or Parliament official talking to a lobby group or interest representative is automatically in their pay, representing their interests. And yet, meetings between officials and stakeholders on a wide range of policy areas, and representing every side of the argument, take place on a daily basis in Brussels. How else can the Commission – as the main proposer of legislation – ensure that it does intelligently and effectively, in a balanced way that tries to take into account all points of view? Would critics prefer that the Commission remained entirely aloof, taking decisions that could affect millions of Europeans, without bothering to ask about the potential repercussions?

Without lobbying, the interests of a very large group of people would be lost in the process of law-making. Lobbying enforces the democratic debate and is an important component of a healthy democracy. Lobbying is a good thing, if it is practiced in an ethical way. For MEP’s losing lobbyists would be like losing their third eye. Lobbyists are able to provide legislators with independent researches to protect the interest of the public, presented in a very digestible way. Criticized or praised, effective or ineffective, whether it is well done or not, even with adverse effects, the lobby activity has been present in the life of every society no matter what name it was called. There were always individual or common voices that tried to change something that they did not like using arguments or personal influence.

It’s essential to understand what lobby is about, because this activity involves a serious documentation and solid research. The most effective lobbying activities are those that provide both arguments and scientific and technical elements for taking the decision or change certain policies and as long as we use it for a good perception in a right way and we have nothing to hide, practicing lobby is a respectable job