GPlus Europe

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GPlus Europe, part of the Omnicom empire, is a public relations company with offices in London and Brussels that specialises in advising clients on winning support from decision makers in the European Union. "GPlus Europe produces made-to-measure political and communications strategies for our clients. We think through an organisation’s whole approach to the EU in order to position it, brand it and build its reputation with policy-makers, stake-holders and the media," it states on its website. [1]

Working for Russia

In 2006 the Russian government signed a multi-million dollar deal with the Washington office of the PR company Ketchum and GPlus Europe. The Financial Times reported that the contract is "to improve the presentation of Russia's presidency of the Group of Eight leading nations." In late April 2006 U.S. Republican Senator from Arizona, John McCain, criticized the decision in January by the Russian government controlled company, Gazprom, to cut off gas supplies to the Ukraine. [2] The deputy press attaché to Mr Putin, Dmitry Peskov, told the Financial Times that Russia's 12-month presidency stint of the G8 "didn't get off to a good start on the communications front." "Perhaps if we had already been working then with some kind of communications company things would have been different," he said. [3]

GPlus founder and partner Peter Guilford told PR Week that the agency was tasked with covering "Russia's G8 priorities - energy security, education and infectious diseases. In reality, the broader view of that brief was everything to do with Russia's integration into the broader world economy."[4]

"Russia is not perfect," he told PR Week. "It doesn't have a perfect democracy, it doesn't have perfect human rights, but it has come a hell of a long way in the past 15 years".[5]

"Now there is a commitment to liberal economics, human rights and democracy. They're not always perfect, they're not always kept to, but the direction is right," he said. [6]

Personnel

Contact details

GPlus Europe
239 Old Marylebone Road
London NW1 5QT
United Kingdom

GPlus Europe
Rue Breydel 42
1040 Brussels
Belgium

Web: http://www.gpluseurope.com/

References

  1. Neil Buckley, "Kremlin hires PR group to improve G8 image", Financial Times, April 30, 2006.
  2. EU asks US to help pressure Russia on energy", International Herald Tribune, April 30, 2007. (This is a Reuters story).
  3. Neil Buckley, "Kremlin hires PR group to improve G8 image", Financial Times, April 30, 2006.
  4. Hannah Marriott, "Brussels' Inside Man - Peter Guilford", PR Week, March 16, 2007.
  5. Hannah Marriott, "Brussels' Inside Man - Peter Guilford", PR Week, March 16, 2007.
  6. Hannah Marriott, "Brussels' Inside Man - Peter Guilford", PR Week, March 16, 2007.
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