Public to choose ‘worst EU lobbyists’

Public voting to nominate this year’s ‘worst EU lobbyists’ opened online yesterday (20 October). The awards will be given to those lobby groups and EU officials that in 2008 engaged in “the most deceptive lobbying” and “the most-biased decision-making” respectively.

The event, entering its fourth year, is jointly organised by Corporate Europe Observatory, Friends of the Earth Europe, Spinwatch and Lobby Control. The awards seek to “put the spotlight on the behind-the-scenes activities of lobbyists which influence European decision-making”. 

Nominees for the ‘Worst EU Lobbying Award’ include agrofuels producers for their allegedly “misleading campaigns to promote agrofuels as green” and the European Business and Parliament Scheme, a business group, for supposedly “abusing its location and lobbying from inside Parliament offices” to influence policymaking (EURACTIV 28/04/08). 

Others include ‘safe medicine’ campaigners for allegedly “hiding the involvement of big pharma corporations in their campaigns” and the airline industry for its “deceptive” campaign to “avoid CO2 reduction obligations for aviation”. 

This year, a new category of “worst conflict of interest” has been introduced to “highlight the need for EU institutions to clean up their own activities” and introduce “stronger ethics rules”. 

Nominees and their alleged misdemeanours include various MEPs and Commission officials including Fritz-Harald Wenig, a director in the EU executive’s trade department, who according to the Sunday Times was offered cash by undercover reporters in exchange for insider trade-related knowledge (EURACTIV 09/09/08). 

The Commission has recently taken steps to improve transparency. It launched a voluntary register for lobbyists seeking to influence its policymaking last June (EURACTIV 24/06/08) as a “testing ground” for the feasibility of a register common to all EU institutions (EURACTIV 29/05/08). As of today, 443 entities had signed up. 

An official at the EU executive described last year’s awards as “interesting” and welcomed the opportunity to hear “the views of every interest group”. But he warned that it was important to remember that the organisers were lobbyists themselves (EURACTIV 17/10/07). 

For his part, José Lalloum, the chairman of the European Public Affairs Consultancies’ Association, claimed it was difficult for him not to convince his clients that it was not a good thing to be nominated (EURACTIV 16/11/07). 

Voting for this year’s edition closes on 30 November. The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Brussels on 9 December before being published online. 

Read more with Euractiv

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