the EU parliament is a part of the EU’s legislative powers and its members are hot game for the lobbyists who want to influence political decisions. In the parliament of 751 directly elected meps from the different member states, but several thousand lobbyists.
Since 2011 have organizations and individuals who want to have accreditation to the EUROPEAN parliament to register in the parliament’s transparency register. In the registry, which is open to the public, state organisations, inter alia, type of company, the customers, the cost of lobbying, and how many people are involved.
register available in total to 11,800 actors registered, 266 of them has its head office in Sweden. The case of stakeholder organisations, companies, banks and cities. In total there are 87 accredited lobbyists on behalf of Swedish companies and organisations in the EU parliament.
Absolutely the greatest is the international, but the Swedish-based pr agency Kreab, which has a lobbying according to the register amounted to eur 40 million annually, 20 accredited lobbyists and major customers, such as Lantmännen, svenska Handelsbanken and Scania. Today, approximately 15 percent of the company’s net sales from Swedish customers.
” We help them to understand the EU and give advice on how to go about to influence. Sometimes we are with, and do the actual lobbying. It hits the right people and say the right things at the right time, ” says Karl Isaksson, head of the Kreabs brussels office.
Often, he starts of the officials in the commission, where many questions are brought, and then work their way up in the hierarchy.
– Then sent the proposal to the european Parliament and the council of ministers and then you have to be there too and talk with the assistants, officials and parliamentarians, ” he says.
many people with accreditation and lobbying activities, which it is estimated will cost several million dollars a year.
the Swedish public actors, the presence is clear in the EU parliament. The major cities and regions all want to fight for their interests. The city of gothenburg’s brussels office said for example that they add approximately 5.4 million on operations each year. At the same time, public actors of different ways to report their costs, for example, expect some with salaries for staff on site and others do not. According to the city of Gothenburg consists Brysselkostnaderna primarily of expenses for personnel, office, travel and arrangements.
” I have personally worked in the EU-the commission and know that the decision-makers in the EU are interested in getting the facts and arguments to get to a better legislation. Staff on-site long-term in Brussels will help the city of Gothenburg to gather information on the legislation at an early stage, build a network of contacts that can then be used to influence decisions to make them more relevant for Gothenburg, ” says Catrine Norrgård, general manager of the city’s EU-representation in Brussels.
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