Lobby, una riforma istituzionale

Lobbies, an Institutional Reform

Abstract disponibile solo in lingua inglese

For thirteen years now a debate has continued in the Italian Parliament as to the need to regulate professional public relations activities and lobbying. The complexity of this latter issue – which in the United States, for example, has been regulated by law since 1946 – has de facto prevented the approval of a set of appropriate rules. By detailed analysis of the different positions and, in particular, of the latter proposal, put forward in 1989 by Members of Parliament from all the different parties, the author argues the thesis whereby the two issues must be divided and resolved in two different contexts. On the one hand, rules and regulations governing public relations must be seen as an interest of civil society, thus bestowing dignity and importance upon a profession that is now consolidated in Italy, and which must be subject to a series of elementary standards, especially of a deontological nature. On the other, the rules and regulations governing lobbying must be placed in the context of institutional reform, since one of the pre-eminent interests of institutions is to have a clear, fair relationship with legitimate interests.