Greening the Common Agricultural Policy: the European Environmental Bureau lobbying action

9 Introduction When speaking about lobbyism the common image we have of a lobbyist is a man in suit and tie wandering the halls of power with his briefcase in seeking to jump on politicians and persuade them to legislate in favor of a particular interest. It is not wrong. Lobbyism is an activity mostly based on contact and building the right network of contacts would certainly be an advantage for interest groups. Hence, the work of a lobbyist is also that of meeting decision makers and submit them the arguments on why is convenient to act on a precise subjects. The important thing is that this whole process is carried out in all transparency and full legality. Some legislative frameworks provide specific regulations about the interest representation activity in order to fulfill transparency: in this regard some countries set up registers for lobbyists along with code of conducts 1 . The common image of a lobbyist is also that of unscrupulous men defending the business interests of big and powerful corporations. Guys like Nick Naylor 2 , to put it simply. However, lobbying does not concern only the representation of private, let alone malicious, interests, but also diffuse and social interests engage profoundly in lobbying and in the face- to-face interaction with decision makers. Therefore, the reality of social activism is no longer only that of people doing propaganda in the streets and delivering leaflets or that of environmentalists chaining themselves to trees. Instead, people representing social interests have acquired the instruments and the knowledge of the institutional interest representation; they have become professionals of advocacy, which is the activity aimed at influencing decision makers on behalf of collective interests. Thus, many Non-Governmental Organization s ’ e m p l oy e e s ha v e no c onc e rns i n defining themselves as lobbyists 3 . 1 F o r e x a m p l e , l o bbyi s t s ’ r e g i s t e r s a r e pr o vi de d i n t h e U ni t e d S t a t e s , i n C a n a da , a n d i n t h e E ur o pe a n Uni o n . S e e Petrillo P. L., Democrazie sotto pressione, Giuffré, Milano, 2011. 2 Nick Naylor is the protagonist of the famous movie of 2005 directed by Jason Reitman, Thank you for smoking, on the lobbying activity of the tobacco industry. 3 Faustine Defossez, the European Environmental Bureau policy officer on Agriculture defined herself a lobbyist even though she made a distinction from other lobbyists because «we do not have an economic interest, we fight for the general interest». Interview to Faustine Defossez, May 27, 2014.