Brussels Sunshine

Glass half empty?

Four months after the launch of the register, two of largest Brussels-based lobby consultancies have now entered some details.Burson-Marsteller, one of the top-five biggest 'public affairs' firms in Brussels, indicates it had a total turnover on lobbying of 6,963,000 euro in 2007.

Law firms remain in the shadows

Among the 431 entries in the European Commission's lobby disclosure register today, there are only four law firms. That is remarkably few, considering that the Commission expects all law firms that are lobbying on behalf of clients to register and disclose both their lobbying turnover and their clients’ names.

Meager harvest: just 5-10% of EU lobbyists now registered

It is now more than three months since the Commission launched its online register for lobbyists, and there are just over 370 entries. Exactly how good or bad that is in terms of compliance rate is difficult to judge, but it probably represents merely 5-10% of the total. The Commission has carefully avoided estimating the number of “interest representatives” (firms, industry lobby groups, NGOs, think-thanks, etc.) involved in lobbying the EU who should register.