Study: Lobbying is a mystery for 67 percent of Romanians

Lobbying in Romania is mainly reactive and comes only to correct or improve decisions already taken, while there are several categories of companies involved in lobbying, contrary to the popular belief that only a few companies are lobbying in Romania, found a recent study by Forum for International Communications and GfK. In the survey conducted by GfK Romania, 67.5 percent of respondents could not associate the term "lobby" with anything, showing that there is sparse knowledge of this activity among the general population. Of the entities currently lobbying in Romania, "Non-Governmental Organizations rank first with 38 percent, followed by multinational companies with 29 percent and only 4 percent that are specialized companies, lobbying for and on behalf of third parties,” reads the GfK study. GfK outlined the typical Romanian image of a lobbyist and found that it was a woman, aged between 36 and 45 with one to five years of experience. Many politicians have said that lobbying does not yet exist in Romania, because it is not regulated. The Forum for International Communications and GfK's study on lobbying in Romania is based on the information from 865 respondents: citizens, lobbyists and of politicians, between February and December 2011. Alex Camburu, alex.camburu@romania-insider.com