School teaches the wiles of EU lobbying

Date: 11/07/1996

Lobbying in Brussels is about to gain a new respectability. By the end of this year, expect to see lobbyists rushing about waving their certificates in “EU Institutional Relations and Public Affairs” from the European Centre for Public Affairs Brussels (ECPAB).

This new school is working alongside Templeton College, Oxford and will start its first three-month certificate course in September.

Students in the art of lobbying will presumably embark on intensive training courses in how to nag MEPs until they give in, which restaurants are most likely to dazzle influential Commission officials and how to flatter directors-general by telling them they look much younger than retirement age.

And who is behind this new educational venture? The former secretary-general of COPA/COGECA Daniel Guéguen, who resigned from the organisation earlier this year.

Guéguen has not been idle: his book L'Europe à Contresens is now out and he has been a leading light in setting up the lobbying school. The next project on his horizon is a new communications consultancy. Clearly, there is life after COPA/COGECA.