Public Relations Lobbying Waste Management Research Paper

The European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, is responsible for proposing legislation and managing its implementation, provides the greatest admission to lobby groups via its Directorates General (DGs). DG's are distinct divisions, made up of Commission staff that is accountable for precise responsibilities or strategy areas. DG's often check with experts and interest groups when studying specific matters falling within EU jurisdiction. In 2008, the European Commission started a voluntary register of lobbyists who seek to pressure EU decision-making (Lobbying in the EU: An Overview, 2008).

The Council of the European Union, which is made up of the ministers of each Member State and is the chief decision-making body of the EU, is the least available of the main EU institutions in terms of lobbying. The Council preserves no register of lobbyists and refers contact with interest groups to the European Commission. Yet, national ministers regularly sustain associations with pertinent local and regional lobby groups under the support of the national lobbying rules of their Member State (Lobbying in the EU: An Overview, 2008).

The European Parliament, an openly elected body that co-legislates with the Council, is a key objective for interest groups. The European Parliament upholds a register of just about five thousand accredited lobbyists who give adhere to a specific Code of Conduct and receive special passes to access Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). In 2008, the European Parliament projected the advance of a single register for lobbyists, which would be common to the Parliament, the Commission, and the Council of the European Union (Lobbying in the EU: An Overview, 2008).

Current estimates indicate that there are roughly fifteen thousand lobbyists and twenty five hundred lobbying organizations in Brussels. Lobbyists in the EU usually fall into one of three main groups: industry associations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) / interest groups, and regional demonstrations. Much like their American counterparts, industry associations and interest groups focus on influencing decision-making processes for the advantage of their members, while also gathering and distributing useful information. On the contrary, regional lobby groups stand for regional and local authorities within EU Member States, and center not only on direct lobbying, but also on networking, informing and marketing their regions all through the EU apparatus (Lobbying in the EU: An Overview, 2008).

A key dissimilarity between the lobbying cultures of the EU and the U.S. lies in the advance to funding interest groups and NGOs, as well as political campaigns. In the EU, non-profit organizations representing civil society are frequently the recipient of monetary support from the European Commission. On the contrary, the American system hardly ever provides government funding to support lobbying organizations or interest groups. The money usually comes from precisely the opposite direction. Lobbying in the EU is not lacking its challenges though. Interest groups must deal with the shifting equilibrium of power among EU institutions, such as those changes outlined in the Treaty of Lisbon. In addition, the growth of the lobbying field, has led to more regulation, both by lobbying groups and by EU institutions. The European Transparency Initiative and the new European Commission lobbying register and supplementary code of conduct are just two instances of EU efforts to better watch the emerging lobbying field and the expanding relationships between lobbyists and lawmakers (Lobbying in the EU: An Overview, 2008).

Since the 1980's, a quantity of policies and Directives have been talked about and put into place at the EU level in order to decrease waste generation in the EU, with precedence given to waste minimization and deterrence, and reuse and recycling. More recently, the European Union highlighted the connection amid resource competence and waste creation in two major credentials: the Sustainable Development Strategy and the Sixth Environmental Action Programme (6EAP). These both set as a necessary aim the decoupling of economic growth, of the use of resources and of the generation of waste. In order to attain this aim, the European Commission has been working on a thematic plan on the sustainable utilization and management of assets since 2002 (Europe and Waste, n.d.).

By 2020, the OECD estimates, that the EU could be producing forty five percent more waste than they did in 1995. It is evident that they must overturn this trend if they are to stay away from being inundated in trash. The EU's Sixth Environment Action Programme recognizes waste prevention and management as one of four top concerns. Its primary goal is to decouple waste generation from financial doings, so that EU expansion will no longer lead to more and more trash, and there are symbols that this is starting to take place.In Germany and the Netherlands, for instance, municipal waste generation went down throughout the 1990's. The EU is aspiring for a noteworthy cut in the quantity of trash produced, by way of new waste prevention proposals, better utilization of resources, and promoting a move to more sustainable consumption behaviors (Waste, 2011).

The European Union's advance to waste management is founded on three philosophies:

1. Waste prevention - this is a main issue in any waste management policy. If they can decrease the quantity of waste produced in the first place and decrease its hazardousness by dropping the incidence of unsafe matters in products, then getting rid of it will by design become easier. Waste prevention is strongly associated with enhancing manufacturing methods and pressuring consumers to insist on greener products and less packaging.

2. Recycling and reuse - if waste cannot be barred, as many of the materials as feasible should be recovered, if possible by recycling. The European Commission has defined numerous precise waste streams for precedence attention, the goal being to decrease their overall environmental force. This consists of packaging waste, end-of-life vehicles, and batteries, electrical and electronic waste. EU directives now necessitate Member States to initiate legislation on waste collection, reuse, recycling and disposal of these waste streams. Several EU nations are already recycling over fifty percent of packaging waste.

3. Improving final disposal and monitoring - wherever probable, waste that cannot be recycled or used again should be securely burned, with landfill used only as a last resort. Both these techniques need close observation because of their prospective for causing harsh environmental damage. The EU has lately permitted a directive setting strict rules for landfill administration. It forbids definite kinds of waste and sets targets for dropping amounts of biodegradable trash. Another current directive lays down strong limits on emission levels from incinerators. The Union also wants to decrease emissions of dioxins and acid gases such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur dioxides (SO2), and hydrogen chlorides (HCL), which can be damaging to human health (Waste, 2011).

Waste legislation in the European Union member states develops in large measure directly from European Community directives and policies. A methodical understanding of the appropriate European law is thus essential for all those involved in waste management and their legal consultants (Jackson, n.d.).

The final shape of the 2008 Waste Framework Directive was ironed out in a second reading contract between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers in June 2008. Five months later, it emerged in the Official Journal of the European Union and it was put into force in December of that year. Member states had two years to put it into practice nationally. For the waste management field as a whole, one of the most significant features of the directive was the inclusion of the R1 formula in Annex II. This mathematical formula specified the amount of energy efficiency waste-to-energy (WTE) plants must reach in order to attain recovery rather than disposal rank (Jackson, 2011).

The re-conception of waste as a personification of energy and resources, rather than merely a possible health hazard for safe removal, was reflected in the acceptance of the waste hierarchy as the foundation of EU waste policy in the 1970's. Put into practice through the landfill and a mass of other directives, the waste hierarchy prioritizes waste minimization, followed by re-use, recovery, with discarding by landfill the least advantageous choice. The dispute for waste policy in the EU over the last generation has been to regulate the standards of individual, commercial and public sector actions. Not all local authorities in the UK have made the changeover implied by the waste hierarchy from a waste disposal or diversion strategy to one knowledgeable by an eco-efficiency perspective. Likewise, similar moves are still necessary in the actions of companies and people (Deutz and Frostick, 2009).

On a theoretical level, waste management policy in the EU fits easily into the ecological transformation agenda that lies beneath sustainable development policies, with its argument that environmental defense and economic development are companionable. Therefore, the emphasis should be on separating economic growth from waste production rates, rather than influencing a reduction in consumption. On the other hand, waste policies such as the producer responsibility directives go beyond the universal goals of ecological modernization to connect with the more precise advances to….....