Public Affairs is an organisation's efforts to monitor and manage its business environment. To actively manage its environment, the organisation must identify all of the stakeholder groups that can have an impact on the organisation in some way; establish positive relationships with each of these groups; and work continuously to extend and deepen those relationships through direct and indirect efforts.

Austria: Officials are not obliged to report which lobbyists they consulted, or the topic of their discussions. In addition, regarding the legislative footprint, the transparency of the formulation of a law is not very clear. In Austria, Federal ministry working papers are posted online before they can be discussed in parliament. On the parliament website, there are bills and comments submitted in writing to the parliament during the review period as well as the final legal text.

DEFINITIONS

TI recommends to all three EU institutions to record and disclose all input received from lobbyists/interest representatives for draft policies, laws and amendments. In detail, TI suggests the following disclosure guidelines:

The European Commission:

The European Commission should expand and improve its existing initiative as laid out in its recent Decision of 25 November 2014 on the publication of information on meetings held between Members of the Commission and organisations or self-employed individuals.

The following are (or should be) exceptions to lobbying. They are not (or shouldn't be) considered lobbying activities:

1. Venezuela: President Nicolas Maduro has accused the US of meddling in the country's growing economic troubles and plotting to remove him. The countries have expelled each other's diplomatic staff repeatedly, and have not exchanged ambassadors in almost six years. In March, US sanctioned Venezuelan officials it accused of human rights violations and corruption following mass protests in the country last year. Mr Maduro harshly criticised the sanctions and hailed the officials as heroes against imperialism.

Lobbying is neither recognised nor regulated in Tunisia. The current government is taking steps to consult the various stakeholders. Yet not all stakeholders have equal access to information on the definition and formulation of public policies. Some influential groups (businessmen, corporations, etc. ) have privileged access to information, a factor that detracts from the effort to establish a general framework of transparency and openness in the development of public policies. Also Tunisia is still marked by the weight of big families, that have interests to preserve.

One of the biggest growth industries in Washington right now is something called ‘political intelligence’. Companies and individuals use political intelligence to understand the potential effects of legislative and executive branch actions on business, finance, and other decisions.

Thanks to revolution of big data, there will be a greater understanding of politics and decision-making, based on factual information and quantitative elements. These allow individuals to make judgments on the quality of the public debate, on the quality of politicians on an individual basis, on the effective compliance between a politician's actions and words. PolicyBrain is leading this revolution, and many other similar initiatives will contribute to achieve this important objective.

The view of Paolo Zanetto co-founder and managing partner of Cattaneo Zanetto & Co, one of the largest public affairs firms in Italy.