The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation is a European group advocating stronger EU lobbyist registration and reporting rules. The Mail Online has a story about the state of affairs here.
The [European] Commission’s register, of course, was set up to be entirely voluntary. Isn’t that wonderful? ‘Just sign up chaps and tell us all your secrets.’ You will not be surprised to hear that few of the lobbyists or lobbyist-lawyers in Brussels have been rushing to sign up. Now Alter-EU has done the research: only 593 Brussels-based lobby organisations have registered. That is just 22.8 percent even if we believe the slim number of 2,600 total.