Ethics rules must be binding for all Brussels lobbyists
By Erik Wesselius
Financial Times, Published: May 4 2006 03:00 | Last updated: May 4 2006 03:00
 
From Mr Erik Wesselius.

Sir, In your report, "Lobbying firms in EU to regulate conduct" (May 1), Elaine Cruikshanks, head of the Brussels office of Hill Knowlton, is quoted as saying that "some non-governmental organisations and smaller lobbying firms" are opposing a compulsory register for European Union lobbyists.

Contrary to what she suggests, it was NGOs that put the issue of lobbying transparency and ethics on the political agenda in Brussels.

Since Siim Kallas, commissioner for administrative affairs, audit and anti-fraud, launched the European transparency initiative in March 2005, a broad group of NGOs and NGO networks, assembled in the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU), has been advocating mandatory EU lobbying transparency and ethics rules, overseen by a public EU lobbying watchdog.

On the other hand, public affairs consultants and other for-profit lobbyists have consistently tried to pre-empt ambitious disclosure and ethics obligations becoming part of the European transparency initiative by promoting their own voluntary arrangements.

If the European Public Affairs Consultancies Association is at all concerned with improving public trust in the EU political process, and not only with "improving the image of lobbying firms", it should give its full support to comprehensive and binding transparency and ethics obligations for all lobbyists in Brussels.

Erik Wesselius,
Member, ALTER-EU Steering Committee,
Amsterdam, The Netherlands