European Public Affairs consultants Association
EPACA is organisation set up in January 2005 to resist regulation of lobbyists in Europe. Its members are amongst the most powerful lobbying consultancies in Europe. It is co-ordinated by a little known lobbying company called Houston Consulting Europe run by a former UK diplomat. The fact that it currently (March 2005)has no website indicates that it is a paper 'Association' with one aim in mind: To resist regulation of lobbyists.
On March 16, 2005, EPACA responded to the enquiries of Corporate Europe Observatory, a public interest group, monitoring corporate lobbying with a letter in which it refused to provide details of its operations.
Update: October 10 2005. EPACA now has a website (www.epaca.org) registered on the 26 April 2005. Full registration details from www.whois.net below. The site is registered to Jeremy Miller a 'freelance corporate and political consultant, writer and website developer', according to his website millerassoc.co.uk. The website discloses that EPACA now has an additional six members since its launch in March these are mostly smaller players in the lobbying market. EPACA continues to represent mainly the big lobbying groups most of which are owned by the big three communications Trans National Corporations WPP, Interpublic and Omnicom. New members include: Athenora Consulting, EACON - European Affairs Consulting Group, Kern European Affairs, Kreab AB, Policy Action and Pristop. Kreab is perhaps the most significatn, being aone of the largest Nordic lobbying firm, orginating in Denmark. Interestingly Gavin Anderson and company (Sourcewatch profile) are no longer listed as members.
Members at 01.03.05 were :
APCO Europe
BEE - Business Environment Europe S.A
Blueprint Partners sprl
Burson-Marsteller/BKSH
Cabinet Stewart
Central Lobby Consultants Ltd
Communication & Institutions SA
DLA Upstream
Eamonn Bates Europe Public Affairs
Edelman Public Relations Worldwide SA
EuroRSCG C&O
Eurofacts OY
Europe Analytica
European Public Policy Advisers
Fleishmann-Hillard
Gavin Anderson
Grayling Political Strategy
Hill and Knowlton
Houston Consulting Europe
Interel EPA
Lefebvre Hanneman Consultancy
Logos
Priming Consulting
SPEM - Komunikacijska Skupina
TGG and Partners
Weber Shandwick Adamson
Registration details for the EPACA website:Domain ID:D106170161-LRORDomain Name:EPACA.ORGCreated On:26-Apr-2005 23:06:06 UTCLast Updated On:26-Jun-2005 04:01:00 UTCExpiration Date:26-Apr-2010 23:06:06 UTCSponsoring Registrar:Tucows Inc. (R11-LROR)Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITEDStatus:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITEDRegistrant ID:tu4005jlAsULi1s9Registrant Name:Jeremy MillerRegistrant Organization:EPACARegistrant Street1:3 Melody RoadRegistrant Street2:Registrant Street3:Registrant City:WandsworthRegistrant State/Province:LondonRegistrant Postal Code:SW182QWRegistrant Country:GBRegistrant Phone:+44.2088743650Registrant Phone Ext.:Registrant FAX:Registrant FAX Ext.:Registrant Email:jeremy_miller@btconnect.com