Thursday December 30th 2021
“Ensure more transparency”
Greens want to sharpen lobby registers
The federal government’s public lobby register will start in a few days. It is intended to make the work of the interest representatives more transparent and to prevent corruption. For the Greens, the GroKo agreements do not go far enough. The traffic light partner wants to make improvements quickly.
After years of controversial discussions, the new lobby register will be launched on January 1st – and should be sharpened soon. The Greens in the Bundestag are pressing for this. Her parliamentary group leader Britta Haßelmann pointed out the corrections and additions agreed in the coalition agreement with the SPD and FDP. “We should start the parliamentary procedure as soon as possible,” she said.
The Bundestag decided to introduce a publicly accessible lobby register last March. Professional stakeholders are now required to register there. You have until March 1st for this. Among other things, they have to provide information about their clients and the personnel and financial expenditure of their lobbying activities at the Bundestag and the federal government. The area of interest and the activity must also be described. Meetings in ministries should be recorded down to the sub-department head level.
Lobbyists are also obliged to adhere to a code of conduct. Their activities should be carried out “on the basis of openness, transparency, honesty and integrity”. Information should never be obtained in an unfair manner, especially through financial incentives. Agreements by which remuneration or the amount thereof is made dependent on the success of the representation of interests are also inadmissible.
Creating a footprint for laws
The aim is to create structural transparency. It should be made visible who has an influence on political decisions and legislation. Lobbyists who do not abide by the rules can expect a fine of up to 50,000 euros. The new regulations created under the grand coalition were also criticized as half-hearted by associations such as Transparency International or parties like the Greens. Above all, they lacked the so-called “legislative footprint”, i.e. a reference in all new laws as to which interest representatives were involved.
Haßelmann now said: “It is good that we will have a statutory lobby register from January 1st.” Under high pressure from the public and the opposition, the grand coalition had taken the first steps towards greater transparency, but they did not go far enough. “Now the Greens, SPD and FDP have agreed to sharpen the lobby register and thus ensure more transparency.” Among other things, they wanted to create a footprint for laws and expand the number of registered interest representatives.
The register is kept digitally at the Bundestag. There it is expected that there will be between 6,000 and 8,000 interest representatives who will register in the register. For comparison: the previous public list of associations registered with the Bundestag, which will become obsolete with the lobby register, contains just 2238 entries.