5th Annual PACE meeting | Vienna, Austria
Transparency and regulation in lobbying: these were the topics that lobbyists’ national associations coming from all around Europe discussed in their fifth conference that took place in Vienna on May 7th and 8th, 2015.
The meeting was promoted by the Public Affairs Community of Europe (P.A.C.E.), the only platform gathering national organizations of European public affairs professionals and lobbyists. The Austrian Public Affairs Association (OePAV) hosted the meeting, which gathered representatives from national associations from 16 European countries, as well as speakers from the OECD, Transparency International, and Brussels-located organizations (SEAP, EPACA).
P.A.C.E. members actively spoke about the misbalanced criticism on lobbying while a political discussion about how a modern and open democracy works should be established. Furthermore, EU-member countries should take the European Joint Transparency Register as a blue-print for potential national lobbying-regulations and promote balanced guidelines for national regulations and good practices.
Day 1: Thursday May 7, 2015
Location: Industriellenvereinigung, Schwarzenbergplatz 4, 1031 Vienna, “Neuer Saal”, 3rd floor
- 11:30 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. light lunch & opening remarks by Peter Köppl
- State of PACE – Micol Bertoni, PACE secretary general
- 12:30 – 3:30 p.m. Country updates (15-20 min each)
- Italy (Giuseppe Mazzei)
- Spain (Maria Rosa Rotondo)
- Germany (Dominik Meier)
- New guest-countries:
- Croatia (Natko Vlahovic)
- Serbia (Ana Bovan & Nenad Vukovic)
- Switzerland (Freddy Müller)
- Slovenia (Mihael Cigler)
- Czech Republic (Vaclav Nekvapil)
- 3:30 – 4:00 p.m. coffee break
- 4:00 – 6:00 p.m. Guest’s statement (15-20 min each)
- SEAP & EPACA (Philip Sheppard & Karl Isaksson)
- Transparency International – AT / Eva-Maria Geiblinger “Lifting the lid on Lobbying”-report
- OECD – Yukihiko Hamada
- Country updates:
- France (Eric Schell)
- Netherlands (Peter van Keulen)
- 6:00 – 6:30 p.m. closing debate (input on “compliance” by Dominik Meier)
- 7:30 – midnight: social event & dinner together with members of Austrian Public Affairs Association
Location: “TU the Sky” (skylounge at Technical University of Vienna), Getreidemarkt 9 / 11th floor (building BA), 1060 Vienna
Day 2: Friday May 8, 2015
Location: Industriellenvereinigung, Schwarzenbergplatz 4, 1031 Vienna, “Neuer Saal”, 3rd floor
- 9:00 – 11:00 a.m. Country updates
- Cyprus (Mary Pyrgos)
- Romania (Laura Florea)
- Estonia (Ott Lumi & Andreas Kaju)
- Poland (Jadczyszyn Agnieszka & Ilona Klejnowska-Kamińska),
- Bulgaria (Lyubomir Alamanov & Boris Karakushev)
- 11:00 – 12:00 a.m. discussion of further steps of PACE
- Closing and farewell
