On the home page, there is a transaction that was added yesterday, but the transaction itself was on Nov 7th. Is there a 6 month delay for congressmen to disclose?
It would be nice to see these transactions in near real time (or better, ban congress from buying/selling individual stocks)
That's actually due to a STOCK Act violation (surprisingly common)
Transactions are supposed to be disclosed within 45 days, but they are sometimes disclosed late. The fines for late disclosures are usually a couple hundred dollars at most.
There is a "Topic Search" tab. You can then search for "Artificial Intelligence act" and get 146 results. Granted, it searches more than just the topics, but at least you'll be able to narrow it down (and can download the results for further filtering).
It would be interesting to see the breakdown by client - e.g. Amazon are paying more than €500k via Fleishmann-Hillard and at least another €400k via FTI consulting. Maybe I'm cynical but it seems like an attempt at indirection.
EDIT: Searching by client, it's possible to see that Amazon pay 16 different consultants for lobbying [1], and that's just under the Amazon name, they also have ten subsidiaries that lobby the EU via consultants.
It's a major pet peeve how we misapply the term "lobbying". Lobbying is basically just asking. A citizen writing a letter to their representative is lobbying. The problem isn't lobbying in and of itself. It's paid access and, by extension, regulatory capture.
It's far worse. There is no difference between a high end lobbying entity and a full blow intelligence agency.
If the lobby wants something, they also do things such as genuinely help person X on dossier Y for free in order to covertly influence the personnel of person Z that they otherwise can't reach.( Without anyone knowing, and targeting anyone they deem worth it. )
The groups behind this initiative aren't just providing a journalist-friendly interface to scraped data from one source. They are also preserving historical data that is no longer available from any other source.[1]
This also provides a degree of needed redundancy as the EU Transparency Register is still far from perfect and subject to attempts at manipulation and obfuscation. See for example this story of a failed attempt to memory hole a lobby group's activities.[2]
They also keep the pressure on the EU Transparency Register by filing formal complaints and campaigning to improve transparency.[3]
It's a great example of how data science can help strengthen democracy.
There are 15 funding organizations on that page, why did you choose to only mention that one?
Also, this is a simple listing of self-declared lobbying efforts. Even the most mal-intentioned nefarious lobbyist could not seriously consider this site to be "fighting" them.
I've been working on building an improved version of that site (allowing users to search by the issue being lobbied on, show trends by company, etc.) but it's still in the pretty early stages of development. Have a big update coming in the next few weeks though: https://www.quiverquant.com/lobbyingsearch/
Is there a way to see breakdown of exactly what a company is paying lobbyists, either directly or via a consultancy? It's currently a lot of manual work searching for e.g. Amazon and looking at the eleven trading names that lobby the EU via a multitude of consultants.
Also why do some organizations have relatively big lobby costs but no EP passes or meetings with EC? Does that mean that they are less "effective" than their peer lobby organizations?
yes, back in the days CEO (Corporate Europe Observeratory https://corporateeurope.org/) alter-eu (https://www.alter-eu.org/), and a bunch of other NGOs where using (and also sponsoring it). But it is also well known by the OCCRP people (one of whom actually started the whole thing).
Also why do some organizations have relatively big lobby costs but no EP passes or meetings with EC? Does that mean that they are less "effective" than their peer lobby organizations?
As long as the EU representatives aren't getting paid, lobbying seems fine to me, unless you want all campaigns publicly financed (which I'd also be good with).
It's a dubious claim to state that lobbying is legal corruption.
The difference between actual corruption and lobbying is large: corruption enriches politicians personal wealth, while lobbying (at its worst) increases the money a politician can use to get elected. Maybe some would believe one is just as bad as the other, but I don't. Election finance law is critically important to preventing corruption from creeping in.
Lobbying is telling elected officials what you want the law to be. It costs money because employees get salaries, websites cost money to build, reports cost money to write and publish, TV ads cost money to make and run, etc.
None of that goes to the elected official or their election campaign. It’s paid to staff, consultants, and vendors.
Laws are proposed by the (lobbied) Commission, and also the Council. Not by the Parliament, which is made up of the MEPs that citizens directly vote for.
Using lobbying corps can spend money to get laws that are against common good. Whether that money goes to the politician directly or indirectly (ie corruption), or a bunch of astroturfing puppets whose goal is to drown out the peoples voice with FUD is irrelevant.
Brussels. It is just like a lot of lobbying groups in the US have their office in Washington D.C.
For example United States Chamber of Commerce, Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America, Business Roundtable and NCTA The Internet Television Association all have their HQ in Washington D.C. (all 4 are in top 10 largest lobbying groups in the US)
That's where Brussels is located. It makes sense to have your lobbying office near the offices of the institutions you want to lobby. Less time spent travelling.
If anyone is interested, here's my project combining data on proposed legislation, U.S. lobbying by publicly traded companies, and congressional stock trading: https://www.quiverquant.com/sources/behind-the-curtain/