A "European Code of conduct for lobbying"?

Just stumbled upon this press release informing that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) voted in favour of a recommendation to set up a European Code of Conduct for Lobbyists today.

The PACE is only a consultative body of the Council of Europe, uniting parliamentarians from the 47 member states of this international organisation, and so the Recommendation 1908 (2010) is not a directly binding document.

Nevertheless, it will force the governments of the CoE member states to position themselves whether they want to follow the demand of the Assembly to set up the code that would define a common understanding of what "lobbying" is and that would, inter alia, define common rules

"applicable to politicians, civil servants, members of pressure groups and business enterprises [...], including the principle of potential conflicts of interest and the period of time after leaving office during which carrying out lobbying activities should be banned"

It will be interesting to see whether the 47 states can agree to start the work on such a text or whether the final response to the Assembly will be that there is no consensus on such a project and that member states are expected to define and regulate lobbying independently.

In any case: A matter that could be worth following.

PS.: Of 79 parliamentarians present at the time of voting, only 1 voted against the recommendation: Alejandro MUÑOZ ALONSO (Spain, Partido Popular) (cf. voting records).

Follow-up on the lobbying story (UPDATED)

---

Update (30 March 2010): According to CEO, the European Commission has dismissed the complaint from EPACA against the transparency organisation because it was ill-founded concluded that the complaint was not admissible (see comments from Erik).

---

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dnwallace/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The lobbying story reported by EUobserver on Tuesday that I have covered yesterday has been continued.

It has been continued both in the comments to my blog post as well as on the website of the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) where the full email exchange between David and Burson-Marsteller has been published.

In the comments, David, the person that EPACA has been complaining about, told his side of the story and Leigh, the EUoberserver journalist who wrote the story, explained why he hadn't talked to him before publishing the article. So what we are now missing are public reactions from EPACA or Burson-Marsteller and the European Commission.

Now it will be interesting to watch what will be the result of this story...

Lobbyists lobby against anti-lobbyists: WHAT?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenore-m/ / CC BY 2.0

I don't think lobbyists are evil; lobbyism is part of democracy.

But I think intransparent lobbying is bad. And lobbying for evil people (e.g. for the weapons industry, criminals or countries that torture or kill people) is worse.

So what is worst? - Spinning against people who work to uncover intransparent lobbying for evil people!*

According to EUobserver, a Brussels lobbyists' organisation (EPACA) is now lobbying against the anti-lobbyists of the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) because they used investigative techniques trying to uncover intransparent work of EPACA members for certain countries that are not known for their positive image**.

Dear European Public Affairs Consultancies' Association, do you realise that you make a fool of yourself and your members by such obvious red herring?

---

*Update: A question on Twitter made me think and now I am in a dilemma: What is the worst - (a) lobbying for evil people or (b) spinning against those who try to uncover intransparent lobbying, even for not-evil-but-still-not-perfect people or (c) me? Don't have an answer.

**Update: And, yes, I admit to Dusan Jakovljevic who raised the question that he caught me with a smoking gun although he would have preferred to find me with a smoking cigar. ;-)*** Yes, I admit, I didn't read the EUobserver article properly, mixing up two paragraphs, and hence left the impression that I was calling certain countries "evil" although all I actually wrote was "not known for their positive image". Yet one could have well-reasoned doubts about that. But now everything is correct. I hope.

*** Remember: Smileys in blog posts look bad. You have to erase them with a strike and then tell your readers why you did this.

PS: Damn, the blog post looks crappy now. I should erase it. But then I would be intransparent. That's the fault of lobbyists. And journalists. And bloggers' ethics. It all ends up crappy just because of some rules some people have set up to mess up our life. Next time I write about kittens. European kittens. But then there would be the European Kittens' Lobby complaining that I use kittens for my private catharsis. And then I will have to excuse in crappy-looking updates that ruin my blog. I then need to go the the European Commission to complain about this. And they will propose a regulation that won't make me happy because it will be watered down by special interests who think that people who blog about kittens shouldn't feel better in Europe. Because they are evil.

I admit: I am evil. Hehe.

PPS.: And please let's not have a debate about whether lobbyism is evil, because it isn't. I agree with Leigh Phillips.

The tactics of the European plastics lobby

According to German top blog Basic Thinking, the European plastics lobby has captured a domain name related to an upcoming documentary called Plastic Planet.



The official German website of the film now is http://www.plastic-planet.de, but the European plastics lobby "PlasticsEurope" had already captured http://www.plasticplanet.de on which it presents "a balanced discussion" about plastics in direct reaction to the film.

Isn't it funny to get a balanced discussion from a biased organisation?

This is a perfect example on how European level lobby organisations are not only active in the Brussels bubble trying to influence the minds and draft decisions of parliamentarians and officials, but also on the national level using their power to get into the brains of all of us.

One more reason to watch the film!

On the voluntary lobby register

I received a question regarding the Commission's voluntary lobby register in the comments to this post, and I would like to share it - and my answer - with you.

unregistered advisor asked:

"I'd be very interested to hear your unbiased opinion about the REAL need for a lobbyist register.. especially a voluntary one, and more specifically what the point if of "financial disclosure". THe whole issue between Friend of the Earth and CEFIC is laughable...."

My short answer:

"My unbiased opinion (which sounds like a nice oxymoron to me :-) ) is that a voluntary register is a nice little toy, not more and not less.

I think that there should be a mandatory register - publicly available and including financial data - for any lobbyist who wants to interact with an EU institution and its officials. Officials should then refrain from interacting with any non-registered lobbyist.

I see this unchecked voluntary register more as a test range, a possibility to exert some public pressure for transparency. Its real sense remains still rather unclear to me."

What do you think?

Brussels Sunshine: More effort needed for the Commission's lobby register

From a freshly published article by Brussels Sunshine on the currently ongoing review of the Commission's lobby register:

"[T]he Commission’s job is to make whatever changes necessary to ensure the transparency register fulfils its goals: securing visibility around who lobbies EU decision-makers, on whose behalf and with what financial means. Aiming for "the middle ground" between the positions of different lobby groups will not result in a quality outcome. Instead it leads to a lowest common denominator approach that effectively gives the anti-transparency lobbyists victory."

I totally agree!

The EU in German blogs (4): Lobby register celebrates 1st birthday

LobbyControl "celebrates" the first birthday of the Commission's lobby register (own translation):

"The lobby register of the European Commission celebrates its first birthday today. The Commission used this occasion to draw some first conclusions - a complete analysis is due to follow in July. Yesterday, the responsible director Jens Nymand Christensen declared the voluntary approach a success because the number of registrations was steadily increasing. Thus, there would be no need for an obligatory register.

This assessment can not be held up at a closer look as our study that we publish together with Alter-EU and some newer figures prove:

There are 1,604 lobby groups registered by now. Only 625 of those actually have an office in Brussels. Many of the associations registered are totally irrelevant for the lobby register because they are not based in Brussels and dispose only of minimal lobby budgets. If we use the estimations of the European Parliament that 2,600 lobby groups have their seat and an office in Brussels, only 24% have registered themselves until today. [...]

Speaking about of the register under these conditions is not a sign of an objective perspective. The register is and remains the unloved child of the Brussels lobby scene. Law firms and think tanks refuse completely to accept it. They have boycotted the lobby register from the very beginning. [...]

[...]"

Looks like the register has still a long way to go...

EuroparlTV: How much lobbyism in the European Parliament?

On EuroparlTV, Dominika Pszczółkowska, Polish journalist and blogger writing the Poland in the EU blog, and Mariane Dony, professor at the Free University of Brussels, are discussing the role of the European Parliament, the amount of lobbyism MEPs are confronted with, and the changes in the salary scheme of MEPs.

It's not a big debate, but still worth watching - if not for the reflective atmosphere then maybe just to see a fellow blogger live and in action:



PS: Recommendation: Erik's very critical comment to this discussion.

Recommended: "MEP-turned-lobbyist shuns voluntary register"

Brussels Sunshine, a very good lobby watch blog, has published an article on MEPs who changed from the European Parliament into lobby and consultancy firms and whose names do not figure in the lobby register:

"A few weeks ago, in our ‘Inside the Brussels Bubble’ blog, we wondered how many of the MEPs not standing for re-election would go through the revolving door into new jobs as industry lobbyists.

Some high-profile MEPs went through the revolving doors to join Brussels lobby consultancy firms after the 2004 elections [...]. None of these ex-MEPs feature in the Commission's lobby transparency register, because the Commission – astonishingly – does not ask for lobbyists’ names to be disclosed. One can only hope that the Commission remedies this blunder when the register is reviewed next month. [...]"

That is indeed a very interesting topic, one that I think I will keep an eye on after the elections, too.

European Parliament Intergroups - Necessary co-ordination or just hidden lobbyism? - updated

---

UPDATE (2009-12-09): For a list of 2009-2014 intergroups, there is a more recent article!

---

Although I am quite passionate about EU-related topics, I am not an EU-insider. So while blogging, I am still learning.

Today, reading a scientific article on NGO participation in EU law-making, I stumbled over a term I haven't heard before:

"Intergroup"

Apparently, intergroups

"are informal bodies of MEPs with membership from different political groups from within the European Parliament. While intergroups are not considered organs of the European Parliament, officially recognised intergroups are resourced by the Parliament with meeting space and translation facilities."

(corporateeurope.org; PDF)

D. Chabanet calls them "a blind spot in parliamentary life", and in line with Corporate Europe the argumentation highlights these intergroups, which in general seem to be organising pre-decision and issue-related co-ordination across political groups, as (possible and sometimes obvious) room for lobbyist activities and uncontrollable external funding.

It is also made clear that the regulation on intergroups introduced by the heads of the parliamentary groups in 1999 (here in a .doc version from 2004), which was intended to make their work more transparent, led to less transparency, because several of those groups withdraw from the inside of the Parliament and continued working in the unregulated space outside its buildings.

These intergroups received only minor attention in a 2008 resolution of the parliament on transparency and lobbying, and in debates taking place in the time before this resolution was adopted, it looks like intergroups are rather defended by MEPs than criticised.

A list of groups I could find in EP documents since 2004 available online (supplemented by some found via internet research and in this document):

• Anti-Racism and Diversity Intergroup (Chair: Claude Moraes)
  
• ATD Quart Monde (Fourth World Intergroup, the oldest group) (Chair: Íñigo Méndez de Vigo)
  
• Baltic Europe Intergroup (Christopher Beazley)
  
• Cinema, Audiovisual policy and Cultural Diversity Intergroup (Chair: Ruth Hieronymi)
  
• Disability Intergroup (Chair: Richard Howitt)
  
• European Constitution Intergroup
  
• Gay and Lesbian Rights Intergroup (Chair: Michael Cashman
  
• Intergroup for Animal Welfare (Chair: Neil Parish)
  
• Intergroup for traditional national minorities (President Csaba Sándor TABAJDI)
  
• Intergroup on Ageing (several Co-Chairs, inter alia: Mihael Brejc)
  
• Intergroup on Bioethics (Chair: Hiltrud Breyer)
  
• Intergroup on Careers
  
• Intergroup on Conservation and Sustainable Development (Chair: Struan Stevenson)
  
• Intergroup on Family and Protection of Childhood (Chair Marie Panayotopoulos)
  
• Intergroup on Health and Consumer Protection (Chairs: Pilar Ayuso Gonzalez, Beatrice Patrie)
  
• Intergroup on Hunting (President Michl Ebner)
  
• Intergroup on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) (Chair: Othmar Karas)
  
• Intergroup on Tibet (Chair: Thomas Mann)
  
• Intergroup on Volunteering
  
• Intergroup on Wine (Viticulture-Tradition-Quality Intergroup) (Chair Astrid Lulling)
  
• Land Use and Food Policy Intergroup (Chair: Paulo Casaca)
  
• Rugby League Intergroup
  
• Social Economy Intergroup (Chairs: Elisa Ferreira, Mario Mauro)
  
• SOS Democracy Intergroup (Chair: Jens-Peter Bonde
  
• Sports Intergroup (Chair: Chris Heaton-Harris)
  
• Trade Union Coordination Group; formerly Trade Union Intergroup (Chair: Stephen Hughes
  
• Tourism Intergroup (Chair: Margie Sudre)
  
• Urban (Housing) Intergroup (Chair Jean Marie Beaupuy)
  
• Informal intergroup Friends of India
  

The latest intergroup to be formed (for the next term) seems to be on on the Danube river.

This is all I could find through a comparatively quick search on the websites of the European Parliament, but the 2006 report by Corporate Europe linked above names even more.

The topic deserves follow-up, in particular because I have seen that a number of these groups have websites (as the one on hunting), which need to be further analysed. I suppose we can also find more detailed information in other sources and with a more refined research method.

If anyone has more details, hints, remarks, suggestions, I would be more than ready to take these up and to continue this in the future.

(Updated with some additional groups, several names of Chairpersons, and links on 07 and 10 May 2009)

The Commission recommends its staff to be intransparent

In a Vademcum (handbook) leaked on Wikileaks it has become obvious that the Commission is advising its staff to write documents and emails in way that allow maximum intransparency.

I quote from the document (the most important things are on page 13):

When writing a report, avoid recording statements which may turn out to be politically embarrassing for those who have made them and avoid adding such comments to the report itself.

In other words, don't write everything that actually happened into your reports, but just record content that doesn't reveal the true intentions of actors. For emails:

[D]on't refer to the great lunch you have had with an industry representative privately or add a PS asking if he/she would like to meet for a drink

In other words: Don't leave any written proof that you are influenced by lobbyists and outside interests.

The best thing to do [when writing a report; JF] is to make two separate documents, i.e. one factual report, and a separate one with the assessment of the report (and possibly suggestions for follow-up). By doing this, we avoid having to "whiten" certain parts of the report, which creates an additional work burden (scrutinise the documents, determine what has to be deleted and justify why it has been deleted …) and which always carries a risk of confirmatory action, or even recourse to the Ombudsman or the Court (who may ultimately find that the invocation of exception grounds was not justified and even order the deleted parts to be disclosed …)

Or, differently said: Try to separate relevant parts from irrelevant parts of reports, because then it is easier to hide the relevant (i.e. judgemental) parts from the public.

This is very revelatory and although it is not surprising it is still shocking to see it on paper.

Congratulations, EU Commission, for your organised intransparency!

(via europa transparent coming via Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) coming via EUobserver)

Read also:: Commission staff teaches others how it can be lobbied

EU Commission staff advises others on how to lobby

If I am reading this event announcement correctly, then an advisor to the European Commission on Security of supply and energy markets who has recommended the use of nuclear energy in the past is advising other and future lobbyists how to best influence EU policy making.

I am amazed.

The event description:

Attending the "Lobbying in the EU: How to represent and defend your interests in BrusselsTM" workshop is the most effective Brussels based event for developing your understanding of the workings of the EU. With a new Commission and Parliament due after the summer, now is the time to brush up on your EU knowledge and lobbying skills!

Congratulation, EU Commission, you let your own people teach others how you can be easily influenced!

What about asking Mr Barroso to tell lobbyists how they can make him leave office after the EP elections?

No Romanians in top EU lobby posts

In an interesting argumentation (Romanian), Dan Luca points out that among the around 5,000 lobby and interest groups in Brussels, non is headed by a Romanian, in particular because of the status of new member state and the lack of industrial structures in Romania.

Nevertheless, Luca highlights that these European leaders are quite influential (and well-paid), and that attention should also be given to these posts and not only to top EU institution positions if Romania wants to have influence on the European scale.

Sunday's reading: Dubious entries in the European Commission lobby register?

After bringing up the GPlus-Affair some weeks ago, Brussels Sunshine now has taken a closer look at some entries within the EC lobby register that they find dubious.

The question they ask is: Is the register really fostering transparency?

EUobserver has taken up this story, too. There an EU Commission administrator is quoted saying that not all entries in the register are checked, which offer loopholes for fake registrations and raises questions about the reliability of the register as an "official" (thus authoritative) database!

GPlus back on track: A small but valuable step towards transparency?

Sorry, I don't have much time to blog these days, but it's still worth mentioning that GPlus is back to the lobby register.

I have, following Brusselssunshine, recently covered that EU lobbyist GPlus was suspended from the European Commission lobby register after refusing to disclose four of its clients.

Brusselssunshine has now followed up on that matter, telling that GPlus is back on the register after publishing that the clients previously hidden are:

• Europcar International
  
• European Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (EVCA)
  
• Lanxess
  
• Toyota
  

I agree with Brusselssunshine that this is an amazing precedent for the future of more transparency in EU lobbying. It is also another sign that blogosphere attention can be reproduced in classical media (i.e. the Financial Times) and forces public (and not-so-public) players to react.

One could say that through Brusselssunshine (and those following) a valuable precedent in non-coercive EU governance has been sped up, which is not much but still enough to see that EU blogging is not totally in vain.

(via Kosmopolit on Twitter)

EU Commission lobby register suspends registration for lobbyist GPlus - updated (2x)

The Register of Interest Representatives of the European Commission, which was having a slow start, has now suspended the registration of one lobbyist - GPlus (which was lobbying for Russia during the war with Georgia and on which I have reported before in the case of Peter Witt) - as Brussels Sunshine reports.

The lobbyist failed to report several of its clients, which is against the rules of the voluntary register with which the Commission

"wishes to let citizens know which general or specific interests are influencing the decision-making process of the European Institutions and the resources mobilized to that end."

I agree with LobbyControl (via whom I got aware of this matter) that this is at least a good sign from the side of the Commission that it takes the registration process serious enough not to let lobbyist walk all over its nose. Not more, and not less...

Update:

Yesterday, GPlus has published a statement on their main website:

We uploaded our entry on the European Commission's register on 15 December 2008. Our entry remained publicly available until 15 January 2009. The European Commission then removed our entry. They gave us no advanced notice of this.

When we discovered our entry had been removed we contacted the Commission immediately. The Commision official responsible explained that our entry had been removed because 3 (out of a total of 39) of our clients had not been named.

These 3 clients did not wish to be listed in our registration.

We are actively trying to resolve this problem with the Commission.

In the meantime, our entry on the register will available on our own here.

Let's see, how this matter evolves.


Update 2 (24 January 2009):

One day after this blog article appeared, the Financial Times has covered the issue. Probably co-incidence. In any way, I got a lot of traffic from European law firms and lobby companies, many shortly after the post appeared, and all directly to the page - as if somebody had sent around a mail informing about it...

(Originally posted on 22 January 2009, 8:40 CET)

German high-level diplomat becomes lobbyist

The recently retired Deputy Permanent Representative of the German Representation to the European Union in Brussels joins, three month after retirement, the lobbyist consultancy GPlus Europe.

Peter Witt, who held the rank of ambassador, will be able to use his first-hand experience to consult clients on crucial details of EU decision-making.

The press has written about GPlus Europe (which they display on their own website):

Within Brussels, one of the best-known cases of the seemingly organic ties between the EU institutions and businesses can be found in the sleek offices of GPlus Europe. Of the 49 employees listed on this public relations firm's website, 28 have worked for the European Parliament, the Commission or for the Brussels embassies of the Union's national governments.

GPlus has used the insider knowledge that its employees have of the EU institutions as a selling point, helping it to win clients as illustrious as Microsoft and Vladimir Putin; the former Russian president hired its services in an effort to improve his image in the West.

This is another example of important civil servants joining the lobbyist scene in Brussels, shortly after leaving public office. Whether this is much better than leaking secrets while being in office - I am not too sure.

via FAZ (printed version)

German eurocrat leaks trade secrets

The Sunday Times has revealed that the German high-level European Commission official Fritz Harald Wenig, director for trade defence, divulged secrets worth several millions after having been invited to fency lobbyist lunches.

The two Times journalists investigating in this case disguised as British lobbyists working for a Chinese company, and Mr. Wenig followed their invitation to a fency restaurant to talk:

Within weeks Wenig was prepared to listen to suggestions of backhand payments and a proposal to take up a lucrative role with the fake lobbyists’ Chinese client.

It was no longer a joke. He passed on details about two Chinese companies which could not be obtained outside the commission and could have been commercially valuable – had he not been dealing with reporters.

Last week he also told the fake lobbyists about a crucial decision on footwear tariffs in advance of an expected decision on the subject this week by Peter Mandelson, the trade commissioner.

Trade Commissioner Mandelson has informed that an investigation is on its way.

Update:

I just saw that Vitalij was already dealing with the subject yesterday.

German industry lobbyist new member of EESC

Found at European Agenda:

Bernd Dittmann, Managing Director of the German Business Representation in Brussel, has become a new member of the Economic and Social Committtee (EESC) of the European Union.

In February, Expatica.com wrote about him:

Bernd Dittmann is in charge of a representation with offices on seven levels. Having chaired the Federation of German Industries (BDI) for 10 years he is a veteran of the Brussels scene.