The European Union executive said the euro zone economy would shrink 0.3 percent in 2013 after a 0.6 percent recession last year.

Negative growth is projected for Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain.

Here below is the economic forecast provide by the European Commission for the 27 bloc:

Austria: Embarking on a moderate upturn. Projected Growth Rate for 2013: 0.7%

Belgium: Sluggish growth and ongoing fiscal consolidation. Projected Growth Rate for 2013: 0.2%

At present 17.4% of all EU citizens are age 65 and older. This represents a population of 87 million people.

L'évaluation des politiques publiques doit favoriser l'émergence d'un pluralisme de l'expertise et, in fine, accroître la participation des acteurs intéressés par les politiques publiques.

Companies and organizations usually hire or employ a Public Policy Advocate if they want government to do to – or NOT to do – something they care about. Companies and organizations  also hire or employ Public Policy Advocates  to be their “eyes and ears” in Brussels and/or in Member States capitals  to monitor and report on what is happening in areas of interest to them. And some companies and organizations also hire or employ Public Policy Advocates  to raise the profile of the company or organization among decision makers.

The proposed EU data protection regulation is currently being looked at by the European Parliament, and it is there that lobbying is taking place, by U.S. multinationals like eBay and Amazon, Facebook and Google, as well as digital technology lobby platform Digital Europe whose members include all the big IT names like Apple, Blackberry and Microsoft and Amcham EU, the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union.

LobbyPlag (a blending of lobby and plagiarism) aims to be an open source European tool on lobbying or should it be anti-lobbying? The platform will have the following features:

U.S. companies are discovering that the hottest spot in the lobbying and advocacy world is suddenly Brussels.

As an illustration: The American Chamber of Commerce to the EU has 9 registered lobbyists;  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce maintains an ofice in Brussels; Google has 7 registered lobbyist and spends about $ 1 million in lobbing activities; Facebook has 3 registered lobbyists and spends about half a million dollars on lobbying; Microsoft has 17 registered lobbyists.

It can hardly be denied that lobbying faces an extremely bad reputation amongst the public at large in Europe. The term lobbyist is seen by many as an insult, and lobbying is often considered an illegitimate or distasteful activity. Reports in the media are usually negative about lobbying. Critics’ main objections are a lack of transparency in lobbying, implied links between lobbying and corruption and that lobbying lacks legitimacy or indeed even that it poses a threat to democracy.

En date du 12 février dernier, la chaîne ARTE a diffusé un reportage d'une trentaine de minutes intitulé 'Dans l'antichambre du pouvoir' visant à mieux comprendre comment les lobbyistes allemands et français influent sur les décisions prises par les parlementaires.

De mon point de vue, le reportage de ARTE est

1. Un programme réducteur qui n'explique pas le travail d'un lobbyiste

2." Donner la bonne information à la bonne personne", cela ne valide pas la profession de lobbyiste qui va bien au-delà

While the European Union leaders may have reached an agreement on a 2014-2020 budget fixing the bloc's spending at € 960 billion, the deal must now be approved by the European Parliament.

Securing parliamentary approval is likely to take several months and is far from guaranteed. Leading European Parliament political groups are unanimous on refusing this budget because in their views it will not reinforce European competitivenes and may even lessen it. They also contend that the proposed budget will lead to a structural deficit.