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Chamber of Deputies. Hearing of Telos A&S on the regulation of interest representation

On 11 June, Mariella Palazzolo and Marco Sonsini of Telos A&S took part in the round of parliamentary hearings in the Chamber of Deputies Constitutional Affairs Committee within the framework of the examination of the draft laws on the regulation of interest representation.

In Telos A&S’s view, all of the Draft Bills grasp two relevant points:

• The need for an effective and consistent legal framework instead of the many successive partial regulatory measures of the last decade, both at the national and at the regional and local levels;
• They recognise that interest representation consists in bringing to the attention of institutions requests and issues which are regulatory in nature and therefore can be addressed by improving the existing regulatory framework.

Thus, instead of wasting the Committee’s time talking about lofty abstractions, Palazzolo and Sonsini acted as “lobbyists’ lobbyists”, identifying some concrete aspects which could make the consolidated text more comprehensive and effective. Their recommendations were based on their day-to-day professional experience and, as good lobbyists, they then submitted a complementary written testimony putting forward specific amendment proposals.

Telos A&S’s analysis and proposals were divided into three macro-areas:

1. The general purpose which shall be pursued by the framework-law on interest representation, namely guaranteeing the transparency of and equal access to the drafting process of legislative acts;
2. The advisability of excluding subjects who, in light of their professional activity, would have a conflict of interest from the enrollment in the Public register and, thus, from carrying out interest representation activities;
3. A third aspect which is even more connected to the work of lobbyists-consultants, i.e. the adaptation of the provisions to the particular case of those which, like consultancy firms, carry out professional interest representation on behalf of a variety of businesses or other subjects (based on the breadth of their client portfolio) and, therefore, represent more specific interests at the same time.

Click here to watch the short version with English subtitles of Telos A&S’s hearing.

You can download Telos A&S’ complementary written testimony, in Italian, below.