Ministry promises to decide on lobbyism regulation by Dec
MOSCOW. June 8 (Interfax) - The Russian Economic Development Ministry promises to decide on lobbyism regulation in Russia by December, Deputy Minister Oleg Fomichev said on the sidelines of an international seminar on organization and legal regulation of lobbying activity.
"In our view we are now ready for some form of lobbyism regulation because we have adopted anticorruption legislation for public officials (control over spending, revenue and conflict of interests) and now quite a lot of correct measures have been taken to fight business corruption," he said.
Nevertheless, there are still many questions in the area of lobbyism regulation for which the ministry does not have definitive answers. First we need to determine whether lobbyism should be seen as a broad concept where any representation of any organization interacting with the government is considered lobbyism, or to follow the same route as the United States or Canada, where it is not considered lobbyism if an interest group puts forward its opinion within the framework of public procedures (evaluation of regulatory impact, parliamentary hearings, expert councils and others).
"All these forms are not considered lobbyism there. Lobbying in the narrow sense is a profession for specific individuals who obtain money for their work from customers, who declare their income and declare who they have contracts with to represent their interests," Fomichev said. That is the narrow sense of the activity that is called lobbyism and that can be regulated. This area is completely in the shadows in Russia, he added.
The discussion right now is whether or not this should be regulated, he said. "And even if it should be regulated how high are the chances that with such regulation we will clarify this area," Fomichev said. If regulation of lobbying activities is introduced there will also have to be a system for administrating the relevant process, a system of penalties, a system for identifying violations and so on.
According to a presidential instruction, specific proposals on regulating lobbying activities should be presented by December. "I think we can draft proposals on legislation or proposals that it is unnecessary," Fomichev said.
