Mr. János Bertók:

I see this from two perspectives. One perspective concerns the function and the survey we conducted. The survey is ongoing and it shows that lobbyists consider a level playing field very important. Whether the lobbyists are churches, charitable organisations or lawyers, if they are contacting or influencing public officials or policy and if they want to participate in that sense and shape the public debate, they are the other stakeholders or competitors. They feel the situation is disadvantageous for them. The second aspect concerns the reality. The reality is that many countries faced the issue of feasibility or how to make the lobby system manageable, in terms of registration and reporting. There could be overload, for example, if they want to make it comprehensive and cover everyone. Experience in Australia in the mid-1980s showed that doing this became unmanageable. The level of compliance was very low and for that reason, the system was not really functioning and was abandoned.

It is important to focus and choose the right scope. This is essential in order to address the problems and what one considers the main concern. This is the common denominator. Some countries consider the paid lobbyists as the entry point and the most important. After they strike that balance, they define their remaining concerns and include these. One of the conclusions of the June lobbying forum was that experience shows it is better to take an incremental approach - not to cover everything immediately and overload the whole system - with registration and reporting. Instead, the signal should be given that these lobbyists are there and that other actors are also important. However, the level of their activities, which is their incentive to participate, does not require specific registration. For example, some countries use a threshold, such as a certain amount of money, while others by definition exclude groups as an exception, so that they do not cover churches for example. There are pros and cons to some of these examples.