What does it mean to be a lobbyist? What does it mean to work in public affairs? This internal dialogue and our collaboration with the members of the Public Affairs Work Group form the basis of a report which we quote and elaborate below.

1. THE LOBBYING PROFESSION
November 2021

2. And what does it mean to work
in public affairs? This is our
profession and we have long
endeavoured to contribute to
the debate on this topic, one
that is very dear to us.
Along with other Italian
lobbyists, who like Telos A&S are
part of AmCham Italy, we have
taken an in-depth look at the
main issues in our business, also
in order to try and figure out if
and what changes are on the
horizon.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A LOBBYIST?
This internal dialogue and
our collaboration with the
members of the Public Affairs
Work Group form the basis
of a report – carefully and
patiently drafted by AmCham
– which was presented during
a webinar last October
12 where Marco Sonsini
discussed his contribution
to the AmCham document,
which we quote and elaborate
below.

3. In the public debate, lobbying as a
profession is more and more a topic
of discussion, academic research and
journalistic investigation.
However, this visibility is not
always accompanied by adequate
awareness of the nature and aims of
our profession.
In the corporate world, lobbying
and public affairs play an increasingly
strategic role, but awareness of them
is still not widespread enough.
INTRODUCTION

4. AND A FEW QUESTIONS
We asked ourselves a few
questions as we were
reflecting on our profession:
❯ Can we all agree on a
single definition of lobbying
and public affairs that
accurately defines the limits
of this profession?
❯ How has this profession
evolved due to changes in
the political-institutional
context?
❯ How has this profession
evolved/do we expect this
profession to evolve as a
result of other changes in
the scenario?
❯ What skills do today’s
lobbying and public affairs
professionals need to have?
❯ What kind of education is
recommended for the new
generation of professional
lobbyists?
❯ … and above all: What is
the future of our profession?

5. HOW DO WE DEFINE IT?
Working as a lobbyist and public affairs
professional entails:
❯ providing public institutions with
information on the market sector they
are operating in;
❯ representing interests, demands and
concrete proposals to create better
legislation;
❯ contributing to the decision-making
process, providing public decision-makers
with what they need to evaluate the
implications and consequences of policy
choices – i.e. discretional choices – that,
when translated into imperative rules,
impact economic operators and citizens
in general.
According to this definition, the evolution
of how we actually carry out our
profession is affected by:
❯ changes in the political-institutional
system;
❯ economic operators’ cultural growth
in understanding the importance of and
carrying out lobbying activities.
Basing on this definition, the development
of our profession is linked to the
acquisition and development of special
skill sets.

6. AN EVOLVING POLITICAL-INSTITUTIONAL PICTURE
The depoliticisation of the
decision-making process: decisions
are still political, i.e. discretional
choices from among different
options, but more and more
often they are the prerogative of
bodies that neither express nor
guarantee – unlike the Parliament –
that different economic and social
groups are represented.
The changes we see are:
❯ the formal transfer of competencies
outside the Parliamentary–Government
circuit;
❯ structural changes in the balance
between Parliament and Government in
the ownership of legislative proceedings;
❯ fewer Ministries with a portfolio;
❯ the proliferation and increase in the
competencies of Independent Authorities,
also regulatory ones.

7. THE IMPLICATIONS
FIRST IMPLICATION
Professional lobbyists have to contend
with multi-level governance.
The State-Regions Conference is now
practically a Third House.
More and more often EU Directives
have detailed provisions:
so, representing interests in the
ascending phase is essential.
SECOND IMPLICATION
Lobbying consists more and more in
dialoguing with a group of high state officials,
rather than – or instead of – politicians.

8. COMPETENCIES
An increasingly complex political
and institutional landscape requires
lobbying and public affairs professionals
to develop specialist skills, and their
success is based on the ability to
analyse processes, effective strategies
and sound arguments to support their
proposals, rather than a network of
relations and personal contacts.
HOW IS LOBBYING AS A PROFESSION
CHANGING: FUTURE CHALLENGES/1

9. COSA È ACCADUTO NEI COLLEGI UNINOMINALI
HOW IS LOBBYING AS A PROFESSION CHANGING:
FUTURE CHALLENGES/2
CREDIBILITY
Lobbyists have often ended up
getting equated with professional
figures who have nothing to do with
actual lobbying and public affairs
because the media tends to shine
the spotlight on shady (political
or criminal) relations between the
institutions and economic interests.
In order to boost the credibility of
professional lobbying, the focus
should be on
❯ transparency (e.g. revolving doors,
the private financing of the parties);
❯ self-regulation (e.g. codes of ethics
and organisational models, which
are now also adopted by consultancy
firms).
THE NEW FORMS OF
COMMUNICATION
How can we take advantage of social
media?
❯ by knowing political orientations
and the prevailing mood of public
opinion in different sectors;
❯ by launching digital advocacy
campaigns? A tool that is still under
study.

10. HOW CAN WE TRAIN ‘NEW BLOOD’?/1
Training lobbying and public affairs
professionals entails building a
skill set, abilities and experiences
that merge different kinds of
knowledge.
MULTIDISCIPLINARY SKILLS
❯ Legislative knowledge (public
decision-making process and how
legislative acts are shaped).
❯ Political knowledge (history, system
development, the orientation of specific
players, processes and languages).
❯ Economic knowledge (to assess
the impact of legislation on market
dynamics).
❯ Public policies understanding
(in-depth knowledge of the legislative
framework regulating the market).

11. ABILITIES:
❯ Dialectic (analysis, synthesis).
❯ Communication.
❯ Relational.
So, in order to train new ‘recruits’, what the
profession needs today from academia is
basic educational training.
There is unlikely any point in proposing
lobbying and public affairs as disciplines in
and of themselves.
First and foremost, lobbyists need an
excellent command of the issues.
HOWCANWETRAIN‘NEWBLOOD’?/2

12. CASE STUDY:
THE SUPER LEAGUE/1
18 APRIL 2021
12 clubs unveil their plan
to create a new football
competition.
Reaction: a wave of
opposition forms in the
public opinion with cries of
‘Football is for the fans!’
Some governments (and
naturally the UEFA) back
the public discontent.
21 APRIL 2021
The plan gets chucked
after the English clubs
pull out.
The legal, regulatory and financial details of
the plan had all been studied down to the
tiniest detail.

13. An integrated lobbying plan that
included the following could have helped
them come out on top:
❯ Analysing the stakeholders in order
to predict possible reactions to the plan
and to come up with an effective, quick
strategy in response.
❯ Analysing the specific political
context to see what might influence
governments’ attitudes (e.g. links with
the UEFA’s top management? Concern
for smaller football clubs?).
❯ Building a position: not only for
publicity and press releases, but a sound
system of arguments to demonstrate
how economically unsustainable the
current framework is and the benefits
of the plan for the whole football
movement.
❯ Engagement and building consensus
strategy, giving priority to politicians and
national governments, on the one hand,
and fans, on the other.
This example shows how lobbying plays
a strategic and irreplaceable role within
corporate structures in order to respond
to (current and future) challenges inside
the competitive context.
CASE STUDY: THE SUPER LEAGUE/2

14. CONCLUSIONS
The legislative and investment choices public decision-makers
must now make will establish the conditions for the recovery and
reconversion of economic life, a process which will inevitably have
winners and losers. Therefore, lobbying and public affairs will be of
strategic importance because they will allow the production sector to
liaise and partner with the institutions in this phase.

15. Therefore, companies need to be aware of the
essential role of lobbying and public affairs, both
to advance corporate strategies towards political-
institutional representatives and to improve
corporate positioning in the competitive arena.
In this historic moment, where automation
is taking its toll on how the labour market
is organised, lobbying and public affairs, by
definition, cannot be carried out by machines
and continue to be a human, intellectual and
relational endeavour.
This is why companies are being called to invest in
the development of this profession.

16. REGULATING LOBBYING AS A PROFESSION:
THE STATUS QUO
Numerous Bills have been tabled over
the most recent legislatures to the
Chamber of Deputies and the Senate
proposing the overall regulation of
lobbying as a profession, but none of
these Bills has completed (or rather
even begun) the legislative procedure.
However, during the current legislature
this trend actually reversed, and a Bill
on the ‘Regulation of lobbying activities’
is being examined by the Constitutional
Affairs Committee of the Chamber of
Deputies (Chamber act 196 Fregolent,
Chamber act 721 Madia, Chamber act
1827 Silvestri).
This Bill is the fruit of the combination of
three different Bills, and the competent
Committee will soon conclude its
examination in a reporting capacity,
whereupon its report will be sent to the
Assembly for reading and examination.

17. THE LOBBYING BILL: CONTENTS
REGISTER OF LOBBYISTS
The Italian Competition and Market
Authority (AGCM) will establish the register
and it will be mandatory for anyone who
wants to act as a lobbyist to be listed on it.
It will be public and partially visible online
by anyone, while only those listed on the
register and the public administrations will
be able to view another part. The register
will be organised according to ‘interest
sections’ and ‘types of public entities’.
MEETING SCHEDULE
Each lobbyist must update the register
with their schedule of meetings with
institutional representatives, including
the meeting place and date and the
participants. They will also have to write
up a meeting summary.
CODE OF PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
Lobbyists must sign and follow a Code of
professional practice.
SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE
This body will draft the Code, among
other things. It will be made up of
magistrates and legal experts and
must ‘ensure the transparency of the
public decision-making process and the
relationship between stakeholders and
lobbyists and public decision-makers’.

18. THE LOBBYING BILL: THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF
THE LOBBYISTS LISTED IN THE REGISTER
Request meetings with
institutional representatives,
propose studies, research and
analysis of public policy issues.
Access institutional offices.
Help analyse regulatory impact
(AIR) and verify regulatory impact
(VIR).
RIGHTS
Under no circumstances, may
institutional representatives be paid
money or any other economic form of
compensation.
Lobbyists must write up and submit
an Annual Report on their activities to
the Supervisory Committee.
Anybody who fails to follow the
rules risks being removed from the
register, and therefore prohibited
from practicing as a professional
lobbyist.
DUTIES

19. IS A REFORM IN THE PIPELINE?
The Lobbying Bill should complete the legislative process by the
end of this government term, otherwise the Bill will expire and,
only in case an MP in the next legislature promotes it, the whole
procedure will have to start over with the submission of a new Bill.

20. Telos A&S has identified some points in this Bill
that could be changed to boost transparency in the
profession and legislative processes at all level of
government.
We have also expressed our standpoint on this issue in
a hearing before the Constitutional Affairs Commission.
We also sent a detailed amendment proposal for the
consolidated text adopted as the text of the Bill.
Regulating lobbying is a necessary step to address the
total lack of rules to regulate this profession, something
which has allowed longstanding practices and conduct to
take root which have nothing with representing private
interests, or the offering of lobbying services by those
who are not lobbyists.

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Roma 00186
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