European Public Affairs Consultancies' Association
The European Public Affairs Consultancies' Association, also known as the EPACA, was set up on the 28th january 2005.The EPACA describes its role as being, "a representative trade association for professional public affairs consultancies active in the EU marketplace, with a code for which member companies themselves take responsibility on behalf of their staff"[1]. It is based in the expensive area of Rue d’Idalie in Brussels, where prices range from
The APACA was primarily set up in order to stem the tide of regulation on lobbyist in the european parliment. The APACA describes this as:"12 years ago the PA consultancies came together informally and agreed a code of conduct for professional standards. The Chef de cabinet of the responsible Commissioner attended the launch meeting of this code and recommended it as a contribution to professional standards. Since then the Commission has published a data-base of signatories of this code, as information for its civil society interlocutors. The European Parliament (Quaestors and Secretariat General) were also informed of the new code and commended it to the extent that it was adopted as the basis of the code of conduct which is today Annexed to the Parliament’s rules of procedure and required to be signed by all applicants for permanent visitor passes to the Parliament."[2] This shows that the APACA has been set up to keep existing non regulated practices
