The experts need policies as they need experts

The recently adopted constitutional reform gives the Parliament of new and important rights. It also changes the gives by making it visible to an activity which, France, has very bad press: lobbying. If the adopted reform allowed to put on an equal footing lobbying actors, essential activity in the "technician democracy" where the debates concern now more technical arbitration that on choices of society, it will have contributed to enrich and clarify the political debate.

The new rights conferred to Parliament are important: article 39 of the Constitution provides for the possibility to consult the Council of State on a draft law (of parliamentary origin), as is already the case for law (Government) projects, always previously submitted to the Council of State; articles 42 and 46 require a period of several weeks between the filing of a project or a legislative proposal before Chambers and its discussion and vote, which should allow a further parliamentary work; section 43 allows each Assembly to six to eight the number of its standing committees, and therefore "specialize" parliamentarians and to increase the number of administrators themselves specialized; article 48 holds a share of the master of the order of the day which will give the possibility to parliamentarians especially to the opposition to discuss the legislative proposals which take them to heart.

All these reforms will allow the Parliament to exercise control of the Executive of much more efficiently than before: the review of the Act of military programming by the committees of defence and of the statutes of the National Assembly, last week, offers the example. These constitutional innovations also opened a new space of lobbying, contribution of the various groups of interest to the writing of the Act. The reform is however not complete without that has made a real revolution cultural, to treat all lobbies on an equal footing. Today, all pressure groups are not equal in this area. There are "legitimate" the unions, for example lobbies, and others who are less professional associations and business clusters.

An identical status

In this regard, the initiative by Mr Patrick Beaudouin and Arlette Grosskost plans to amend the regulations of the National Assembly to give a status identical to the lobbyists and lobbying organizations, regardless of their denomination "civic associations", "Union representative", "professional associations", etc. and treat all strictly egalitarian way lobbyists, including with regard to access to local meetings, parliamentarians and project texts and amendments. It is, in a tocquevillian logic, recognize the essential contribution of the intermediate bodies the crystallization and the expression of the General will, but in an egalitarian and clear manner: term is "equality of all lobbyists before the public authorities" should result, no cause, due to political bias, deemed "inherently" more honourable than another. A variant of this initiative was developed by Bernard Carayon and Jean-Michel Boucheron members in a forum published by "Les echos" March 12, 2009 ("to be that NGOs are transparent").

This increased transparency of lobbyists must match a restoration of the role of the policies of mediation between the experts scientific and business and the population. The experts need policies as they need experts. It is only at the cost of a serious and dispassionate between lobbyists and political exchange that they can regain a leadership role transcending the "compassionate policy" and exclusively reactive, as it is practiced today. The acceptance of lobbying is inseparable from a strengthening of the role of the policy and the modernization of the French political classes inherited from 1945.

The constitutional reform committed the France in a deeply degenerated approach of political responsibility. Lobbying is one of the instruments of this approach.