Lobbying is an important segment of democracy, as long as it occurs in a legal, legitimate and ethical manner.
In Serbia, what the law states on Lobbying came into force in 2023, also it regulates the circumstances and manner of lobbying, as well as the lobbying rules. The law defines that every lobbyist is obliged to prevent the appearance of harmful consequences for the public interest and that they need to act in accordance with the principle of integrity during lobbying activities in a legal, transparent, responsible and ethical manner. What the law states also prescribes a rule that lobbyists and those who are lobbied need to report to the Anti-Corruption Agency about meetings and contacts with politicians along with other public officials. However, the financial compensation for lobbying activities isn't public information and lobbyists aren't obliged to show their fees to the state authorities, nor towards the Anti-Corruption Agency during the lobbying process.
According to the Republic of Serbia's Law on Lobbying, lobbying is understood to be an activity that influences state bodies, autonomous provinces and local self-government and public bodies founded through the state of Serbia in the process of passing laws, other regulations and general acts to be able to pursue the interests from the beneficiaries from the lobbying process depending on the law. The official or appointed person is prohibited from as being a lobbyist within the activity in which they were engaged like a public official not less than two years in the termination of office term. Lobbying can be carried out with a natural person who is registered with the Register of Lobbyists, as well as a company that's registered using the Register of Legal Entities that perform lobbying. Based on the Law on Lobbying, foreign chambers of commerce are considered unregistered lobbyists and may lobby just for the interests of their members. It remains seen how lobbying activities in Serbia will really work.
It is important for Serbia that the Law on Lobbying was passed which the first lobbyists were appointed. All that is a result of the long-term efforts of the founders and people in the Serbian Lobbying Association, as well as its President Nenad Vukovi'c during whose mandate the law was passed.
As a little country having a developing economy, we ought to also remember the situation in Europe regarding the lobbying profession. According to the report compiled by Transparency International EU, published in September 2023, Brussels may be the second lobbying capital on the planet after Washington, D.C. At least 48,000 lobbyists work at the centre from the EU in organizations that want to influence the institutions and decisions from the European Union, and seven,500 of them are accredited to have access to the European Parliament. It is estimated that almost 12,000 organizations within the Eu have a total annual lobbying budget of just one.8 billion euro. These data indicate that Serbia should have professional lobbyists in its ranks too who will be able to act around the international level, which isn't prescribed through the current law.
“Lobbying is a vital segment of democracy, so long as it occurs legally, legitimately, and also at best, ethically. Unfortunately, despite many regulatory and self-regulatory efforts, there have been quite frequent abuses used which justify the negative perception the public has of this phenomenon. It is difficult to acknowledge positive trends in both Europe or perhaps in america when it comes to this,” said Professor, Boris Cizelj, PhD, and Professor Fazli Mehmet, PhD, who're engaged in research from the lobbying profession. The organization Corp Watch, which promotes the importance of environmental, social and human rights, while highlighting the responsibility of multinational companies for his or her actions, states that there is a strong thought that the media have become an instrument of political and corporate interests, that journalists are silenced and that media owner are closely related to politicians, lobbyists and owners of corporations.
It can be the future lobbyists of the Republic of Serbia to respect the Code of Conduct of participants in lobbying, along with the principle of integrity, that's legality, transparency, responsibility and ethics when representing the interests of the clients. It's also important that, through their legitimate and legal actions, they contribute to curbing corruption and therefore boost democracy and improve the conditions for the acceleration of monetary processes. It's up to decision-makers, i.e. government representatives, to protect the public interest and never to subordinate it to the private one. It is encouraging to determine the number of ethical lobbying activities within the European Union keeps growing year-on-year. The book “Political and Economic Lobbying”, compiled by Balsa Kas'celan and Dusko Krsmanovi'c, explains the term lobbying itself includes a negative connotation since it shows that it's nothing more than bribing decision-makers or people who can influence them. They believe that lobbying is often seen as a secret coupling of government and lobbyists, i.e. like a procedure that takes place away from the public eye and everyone is unwilling to talk about. For several years in the usa, lobbyists have been mentioned as participants in several scandals. This kind of image and reputation have spread all through Europe along with the lobbying profession. The small quantity of lobbyists, who use illicit means, have caused an embedded negative opinion from the entire profession, along with a many professionals find it difficult to correct these long-standing prejudices.
Research on the role from the media in lobbying
Public relations firm Media Skills has conducted market research on the role that the media play in contemporary lobbying processes in Serbia using a qualitative method on a sample of 50 respondents. The firm interviewed representatives of countless foreign business associations and clubs, directors and those who own domestic and foreign companies and banks, PR agencies and embassy representatives. 58% of these answered that lobbying is one of their regular activities, while 38% said differently. More than half of the respondents think that they don't pay enough focus on lobbying, while 23% of these think that there is a serious approach to it. Only 13% asserted their lobbying actions were successful. The majority of the respondents don't have professionals to do lobbying activities. Nearly 90% of respondents use direct communication with decision-makers to uphold the company’s interests while respecting the foundations of ethical lobbying. 85% of them think that it is useful to make use of the media during lobbying activities to have appropriate results. Nearly half of the respondents think that lobbying is really a mechanism through which the strongest individuals society impose their solutions to the detriment of everyone else.
