Lobby Register - Success or Failure?

One year after the launch of the EU Commission's lobby register, with less than 23% of Brussels-based lobby organisation registered, ALTER-EU has published a detailed report highlighting its failures and putting forward concrete proposals for improvement.

The study reveals that only around 23% of Brussels lobby organisations have registered so far, and that much of the information disclosed is insufficient or questionable.[1] Think-tanks and law firms are boycotting the register, while major corporate lobby groups are still poorly represented. This shows the inadequacy of the Commission's voluntary approach.

According to the ALTER-EU report, unclear financial disclosure requirements allow lobby groups to disguise the size of their lobbying effort, making it impossible to determine who the biggest spenders really are and what policies they are trying to influence.[2] The lack of clear guidelines also means that the register is increasingly cluttered by associations that play no role in lobbying the EU.[3]

ALTER-EU is urging the Commissions to:

*      develop a mandatory system to replace the current voluntary register in 2010;
*      close loopholes on financial disclosure and provide clear and broad definitions of what constitutes lobbying;
*      punish non-compliance and disclosure of misleading information;
*      end exemptions for sectors such as competition policy.

Read the full report here:

http://www.alter-eu.org/en/system/files/publications/register-assessment...