Examination of Witness (Questions 180-191)
Mr Chris Welsh and Mr Roberto Ferrigno
7 MAY 2008
Q180 Chairman: How far is the efficacy
of lobbying and the quality of the final product affected by the
de facto tendency to seek unanimity?
Mr Ferrigno: This is going to change, probably,
if the Lisbon Treaty will enter into force. It has already changed
now. The qualified majority is more and more used within the Council
to take a final decision. So, of course, the fact that there is
this tendency towards consensus may have affected the effectiveness
of some legislation. But historically the European Union is about
the internal market. It is an economic issue. It is something
to promote peace after the Second World War and the bright idea
was to promote an internal market where business operators and
then citizens and goods could freely move from one country to
another. We should not forget that it is a very strong economic
route of the European Union. So I would say it was quite easy
to find unanimity in promoting the internal market for the wellbeing
of the Europeans. Then when the European Union started to have
also more political implications, and so on, the situation may
have changed. So again this is reflected in the changes proposed
by the new Lisbon Treaty, so unanimity will not be required any
more basically for the great majority of the policy areas where
the Community has an interest. This has been recognised, particularly
with 27 Members and maybe even more than that in the future. But
yes, in some particular areas unanimity may have affected the
effectiveness of legislation.
Q181 Chairman: What about the appointment
of external consultants? How far does that affect the role of
interest groups and lobbyists? Is it a substitute? Does it mean
that the Commission looks to their view as objective or are they
simply a supplement? I think you have told us already that you
yourselves use consultants, so perhaps you would like to comment
on that?
Mr Welsh: Yes. In my experience the European
Commission tend to use consultants to do specialist work for them,
maybe legal analysis or economic analysis, usually if they do
not have the in-house expertise and skills to do that or they
just do not have the resources to undertake such a detailed legal
or economic analysis. So the consultants tend to come in and do
that work for the European Commission and the consultants, again
in my experience, will take the trouble and time to meet the major
industry stakeholders and other stakeholders to obtain their views.
So you often find that you are having to work with these consultants,
at least to give them information, knowledge and evidence that
you have got. I think the European Commission will often use consultancy
reports in much the same way as probably the UK Government may
use consultants. If it is thinking of introducing a new taxation
system, it might go to some outside consultants to give it advice
in that area about how it would do that.
Q182 Lord Wright of Richmond: Do
you get involved in the process of impact assessment? Does the
Commission consult you, or do you find any way of involving yourselves
in the process?
Mr Welsh: Yes. We get involved to the extent
that we are usually urging the European Commission to undertake
an impact assessment on its legislation, particularly if it is
likely to have an adverse economic impact upon us.
Q183 Lord Wright of Richmond: Does
it ever ask you for help in drawing up that impact assessment?
Mr Welsh: No, but we do regularly contribute
to it.
Q184 Chairman: You mentioned in your
written evidence that the Commission establishes consultative
committees and/or expert working groups. Have you already covered
those in your evidence today? I think you have probably.
Mr Welsh: Yes. Probably the only additional
thing is that sometimes the European Commission, maybe even with
a piece of legislation that is on the Statute book, may want to
review it in the light of experience and often it will then call
together experts it thinks can give it some detailed expertise
and knowledge. I have one member of my team at the moment who
has been specifically asked by the European Commission to assist
it in looking at a piece of legislation which came in about 18
months ago. My experience is that the Commission tends to want
to go to the people who are expert in that area who can give it
that help.
Q185 Baroness O'Cathain: That is
very interesting actually. So is there automatically post-legislative
scrutiny on all legislation and these groups which help to influence
the formulation of the legislation are called back in to see how
it works in practice?
Mr Welsh: It is a bit of a mix. Sometimes legislation
clearly has a review period within it, so the Commission will
automatically review, for example, the introduction of the Working
Time Directive to road transport within a two year period. It
will probably convene an expert group to look at that. Sometimes
it can be ad hoc. For example, we may have been seeking to influence
the European Commission for a long time on an aspect of legislation
that has been long defective and that they should get around to
dealing with. Very often they approach us to assist them in revising
problematic legislation.
Baroness O'Cathain: That is sensible. We could
do that here.
Q186 Chairman: Have either of you
got any comment on whether the present system with lobbyists,
with the sort of cooperation meetings and input you have described,
is a system which you are entirely happy with? Are there any respects
in which you would suggest that the way in which legislation is
initiated and proposals developed could be improved?
Mr Welsh: No, I have not really. European legislation
is quite a complex area and I guess any area where it could be
actually simplified would be a great help, but I think one has
learned to sort of grow with it over the last 15 years or so.
But I have not got any specific proposals for improvements.
Q187 Chairman: What about you, Mr
Ferrigno? Do you think it works well?
Mr Ferrigno: Personally, I think that national
parliaments should be more involved and should have more power
of scrutiny on what is going on. Again, some provisions of the
Lisbon Treaty are going in this direction, but so far (this is
not Weber Shandwick but according to my personal experience) I
think that this is a gap which should be filled.
Q188 Chairman: Do you think the lobbying
which is received at European level is representative? We have
heard from obviously two powerful organisations, the World Wildlife
Fund and the Freight Transport Association and one can see where
the funding comes from, and we have heard and can see where the
impetus comes from, but is there a representative lobbying in
Brussels? Are there people whose voices are not heard?
Mr Welsh: In my experience, it is a very competitive
arena in terms of getting your voice heard. There are plenty of
other stakeholders out there who are equally keen to get their
points of view across and the competition means you have just
got to be more articulate, better informed and come up with better
ideas if you want to be successful in this area.
Mr Ferrigno: I totally agree. It is an extremely
competitive environment. It is becoming more and more competitive
and complex. The different layers of the interests tend to overlap
and sometimes it is difficult really to have a full understanding
and above all to have full control of the whole process, if not
because many, many actors are coming in and making things a little
bit more complicated than, let us say, ten years ago.
Q189 Chairman: But you and the people
who engage you, Mr Ferrigno, believe that on the spot involvement,
personal contact, is important. Are there voices which perhaps
do not have the financial resources or perhaps do not have the
organisation which can communicate no doubt by letter or email
but are not going to be heard to the same extent that yours are?
Mr Ferrigno: Yes, but that is the reason I would
call for more involvement of the national parliaments because
the representational gap can be closed, the different layers at
a national level. Honestly, the European institutions, particularly
the Parliament and the Commission, have tried recently in the
last few years to improve access to the EU policy-making also
for those groups which traditionally have had no voice in the
past, but of course this is a process which also raised controversy
because, as you know, those organisations receive funds, for instance,
from the European Commission so their legitimacy also is questioned.
So it is a very complicated process, but the European Commission
particularly made great efforts in trying to bring in more voices
in the EU policy-making and then we will see if this will change
things or not.
Q190 Baroness O'Cathain: The FTA
raised concerns regarding the quality of legislation. What do
you think is the reason for this and how could the draft legislation
phase be improved to avoid this problem?
Mr Welsh: Often the European Commission comes
forward with quite rational legislation. The important point about
influencing legislation is to influence Commission thinking before
a Green Paper is issued. When it gets into the political process,
as Roberto has described, then the tendency towards consensus
within the Community can have a negative effect, and the negative
effect is that legislation often gets amended and changed in quite
bizarre ways and for quite bizarre reasons. Sometimes it is simply
because things are just done differently in Member States and
therefore the impact of legislation will impact differently, or
quite frankly it has just been traded for something else and as
a result of that process the legislation can change quite dramatically
from what was at the outset a rational piece of legislation and
ends up being a camel!
Q191 Baroness O'Cathain: Instead
of a racehorse?
Mr Welsh: Instead of a racehorse, yes!
Chairman: Mr Welsh and Mr Ferrigno, unless there
is anything more you want to say by way of final comment, thank
you very much indeed for coming and giving us some very interesting
evidence.
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