U.S. LOBBYING IN EUROPE: THE CASE OF EU DATA PRIVACY LAWS

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.

A great deal of  the U.S. lobbying these days has to do with the European Commission's plan to overhaul the continent's data privacy laws. The EC's proposed provisions include a 'right to have their data deleted from the Internet, as well as significantly larger fines for cases where data is mishandled. However, these proposals have attracted scorn from some directions, including American firms, and the U.S. government. Facebook together with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have been actively seeking to persuade the Commission to ditch certain aspects of the planned laws. The U.S. government has gone even further than Facebook and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, by contacting directly the members of the Commission with the objective to delay the reforms. U.S. officials sent briefing materials to director generals during what is known as Interservice Consultation, a procedure normally purely internal to the Commission, which takes place before Commissioners take a political decision on a proposal. The Commission's 27 Commissioners did not allow the lobbying to interfere with the proposals. Calls for postponing the reform substantially or for lowering its level of ambition were rejected.

Onlookers remain concerned at the level of U.S. input from both public and private organisations, however. Many are calling on European member states to join the Commission in taking a hard line. Many in EU circles believe that the scale of lobbying by the U.S. government and corporations is extreme. Data privacy in the U.S.A. is largely unregulated, and general rights are only given through terms and conditions. Admittedly there is a huge incentive for the U.S. and companies like Facebook, Yahoo and Google to trying to water down the regulation. But it appears a war over data privacy with the Commission on one side and heavyweights in both government and private sector spheres on the other is heating up.