Although lobbying is an important part of a healthy democracy, the lax rules mean that businesses and other special interests with lots of money and friends in the right places in cities like Brussels, Rome and Berlin can easily influence politicians and the law-making process in their country to put profits before people.
So says the anti-corruption pressure group Transparency International (TI) in a new report “Lobbying in Europe: Hidden influence, privileged access”. TI says that of the countries assessed in the report seven of 19: Austria, France, Ireland, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia and the United Kingdom, have regulation targeting lobbying in place. But even in these countries, regulation is mostly poorly designed or not properly implemented, meaning that it fails to achieve the ideal standards of transparency, integrity and equality of access, say the campaigners.
Across Europe, powerful individuals are largely able to move freely between the public and private sectors, leading to a potential political bias towards former employees, or an unfair advantage for certain interest groups – a phenomenon known as the “revolving door”. The report says that none of the countries assessed adequately control the revolving door, which TI describe as a key risk leading to undue influence on political decisions.
