European carriers Air France-KLM, easyJet, International Airlines Group (IAG) which is the parent company of Aer Lingus, British Airways, Iberia and Vueling,  Lufthansa Group and Ryanair have joined forces to lobby on European aviation policy, signaling a further shift in the evolving European airline association landscape

Collectively, the group carries more than 460 million passengers a year, accounting for half of the continent’s passenger journeys, operating more than 2,100 aircraft and generating €85 billion in turnover.

The new EU Aviation Strategy focuses on economic growth, high-value jobs and good connections, worldwide and within Europe.  

The Commission has therefore identified three key priorities:

There are seven key indicators to measure Public Governance : Rule of Law, Government Efficiency, Responsiveness, Transparency, Corruption Control, Accountability and Public Participation.

Taiwan is a multi-party democracy and the only ethnic Chinese society that can boast of being a Democracy. On 16 January 2016, 23 million citizens of the island voted to choose their sixteenth president. Dr Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) emerged victorious with 6.89 million votes (56 per cent of the total votes), and became the first female president of Taiwan.

The study of populist political communication has never been more important, not only against the background of the current social, political, and economic tumult, but also in light of recent populist backlashes against governments and the changing media environment.

Populist Actors as Communicators

Radical populist discourses undermine the quality of the public debate by proposing poor reasoning and black-and white arguments to the disillusioned electorate. Using their charisma, their rhetorical skills and new social media, they have oversimplified complex societal issues, divided social groups and propose complete demagogical solutions.

Defenders of democracy have a great role to play here to keep on educating and warning citizens on damages caused by radical populist movements, especially the simplification of complex issues into 'us' vs. 'them'.

Populist parties are gaining momentum in countries across Europe. As voter turnout decreases, the influence of large mainstream parties is diminishing and the party structure is fragmenting. The profiles of the various populist movements in Europe are fundamentally different. They differ not only in their messages and their political affiliations to the left or the right and whether they take a moderate or hard line; their direct influence after election results and their potential for influence in the future through agenda setting are also significantly different.

Listening to the pundits, one could get the impression that social media has rendered the professional public policy advocacy industry ineffective. Yes, social media has given everyone everywhere the same ability to engage, monitor and influence government’s most important policy makers. But is it really the same influence that a Public Policy Advocate provides? Not really.

The results in Spain’s December elections were, more or less, in line with what was expected: the Parliament is more diverse than ever. The mainstream political parties, Christian Democrats (Partido Popular – PP) and Social Democrats (Partido Socialista Obrera Español – PSOE) no longer dominate the political scene. The two-party (also called two-and-a-half party) system of Spain has been challenged by Podemos (‘We can’) and Ciudadanos (Citizens).

The Canadian Registry of Lobbyists is accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week on the website of the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying.

The Registry discloses details about who is being paid to communicate with federal public office holders and on what subject matters. It is the central source of information about individuals, not-for-profit organizations and for-profit corporations who lobby the federal government by communicating with elected officials or public servants.

The information contained in the Registry includes: