Lobbyists reject financial disclosure as 'unviable'

EPACA Chairman José Lalloum supports registration of all lobbyists but opposes mandatory publication of "commercially sensitive or confidential financial information".

"For example," Lalloum explains, "NGOs must only disclose their overall budget and their 'main source of funding', while consultancies are expected to provide a detailed breakdown of lobbying-related turnover. EPACA views this as unacceptable, as the same rules must apply to all. By requiring consultancies to divulge commercially sensitive financial information, the Commission is encouraging them to exchange competitive information, something which undermines competition law."

"Consultancies are essentially being asked to divulge information that no other profession is required to," Lalloum argues.

However, the Society of European Affairs Professionals (SEAP) has not advised its members to boycott the registry. President Lyn Trytsman-Gray has stated the disclosure rules may result in individual lobbyists accounting for their budgets differently, creating a register with "non-comparable" figures, and is asking for a system in which the total turnover is not given, but only a percentage breakdown by client or donor. 

The move towards full financial disclosure is however supported by ALTER-EU, the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation. The group, which includes NGOs Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and SpinWatch, insists that precise rules on financial disclosure are necessary to increase transparency in EU lobbying, "especially for law firms, think tanks and corporate lobby units".

"For our part, as NGOs campaigning for lobbying transparency, we already publish information about our budgets and income sources, and we stand ready to sign on to the new register and disclose the required financial information," said William Dinan from SpinWatch.