Germany has tightened the registration of lobbyists and expanded the information obligations of depression groups, an amalgam of companies, banks and organizations of all kinds that have some 13,000 lobbyists and invest more than 800 million euros annually to influence legislative projects or in the defense of their interests. Failure to comply with the new rules could result in fines of up to 50,000 euros.
“The representation of interests does not have to be bad, but it must be transparent and this shows how strong and intense the efforts to influence us are,” says Social Democratic MP Johannes Fechner.
The amendments approved by the Bundestag to the register of pressure groups in force since the beginning of 2022 aim to provide transparency to the actions of lobbyists and their relationship with politicians, especially with public officials. loud ones like that of former chancellor Gehard Schroeder, who shortly after leaving office became head of the supervisory board of the Russian energy company Gazprom. He hasn’t been the only one. Torsten Albig, former head of the government of the state of Schleswig-Holstein, and now lobbyist for the American tobacco company Philip Morrislbig. They are joined by deputies involved in mask businesses during the covid pandemic, for influence peddling or for lobbying for American computer companies, such as the conservative Phillip Amthor.
Among the loopholes closed by the amendments approved in the Bundestag and which, once they pass the control of the Bundesrat, will come into force in January, is the obligation for lobbyists to indicate, for example, which specific legislative project they want to influence, reveal how much money they have and declare whether they represent the interests of their real client or those of a third party. This will also apply if the lobbying work is related to European Union legislation.
The coalition led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz was particularly committed to this, because the position taken by the German Government in Brussels on important issues such as climate and energy policy, agriculture or the regulation of chemicals is of great importance, for the Government, but also for business pressure groups.
The registry of pressure groups has been maintained on the German Bundestag website since the beginning of 2022. Since then, 5,500 companies, associations, networks and even individuals have registered, but not all will be subject to the same obligations and that is one of the points which criticizes the anti-corruption organization Transparency Germany. “Many small steps forward are being taken, but a big bang is missing,” they say. Transparency criticizes the renunciation of the figure of the lobby commissioner as an independent control body, the fact that federal ministries are not subject to the rule and that there is an exemption from it for business associations, unions and churches.
The law requires information on the financing of pressure groups. The names of the donors and the value of the respective donation must be disclosed in the lobby register if the legal threshold of 20,000 euros is exceeded individually or in total. All financial disclosures are now mandatory, but Transparency International maintains that with the new regulation, in many cases even very large donations remain in the dark, facilitating the covert financing of lobbying initiatives and hiding underlying interests. Thus, donations of more than 10,000 euros, which do not represent more than ten percent of the total donations, would no longer have to be published.
For the conservative opposition, “this would lead to a situation in which “green-left apron organizations” such as Greenpeace, BUND or Deutsche Umwelthilfe would no longer have to reveal how they are financed.
The opposition also criticizes the amendments approved with the majority of the parties in the government coalition, social democrats, liberals and greens because they lead to more opacity and more bureaucracy. “This law is a complete disaster.” adventure Patrick Schnieder, from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)
The digital association Bitkom criticized the reform for overreaching. “The new documentation requirements impose a disproportionately high administrative burden.”
However, they should not be a problem for the large pressure groups and among the hundred most powerful and active are the banks, insurance companies, investment companies, the automobile industry and energy companies. According to the “Finanzwende” movement, the main pressure group is the German Insurance Association (GDV). It has up to 150 different lobby groups and in 2021 alone it invested 15 million euros for this purpose.
