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Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner (CDU)
Photo: Michael Sohn / AP
Foodwatch is suing Federal Food Minister Julia Klöckner (CDU) because she does not want to disclose her meeting with lobbyists.
With the lawsuit at the Cologne Administrative Court, the consumer advocates wanted the minister to make all official contacts with "external third parties" transparent.
"The public has a right to know," said Foodwatch representative Rauna Bindewald.
The ministry had previously rejected a Foodwatch application under the Freedom of Information Act.
Specifically, the lawsuit concerns Klöckner's official appointments in January 2020. However, if the organization is successful, this could have a signal effect in the direction of a lobby register, which Foodwatch has been demanding for a long time.
Lobbying meetings of federal ministers could then fully disclose this.
EU commissioners have long since had to disclose lobbying dates
A draft law of the grand coalition from autumn 2020 provides for the introduction of a lobby register, but so far does not contain any requirements for the disclosure of lobby meetings of the federal government and ministries.
In contrast to federal ministers, the EU commissioners have long been obliged to disclose their lobbying dates, stating the topics discussed.
Basically, the court has to clarify in particular the question of whether consumer advocates can invoke the Freedom of Information Act.
The Federal Ministry of Food had therefore rejected a corresponding application from Foodwatch last August.
The Ministry justified this, among other things, with the large number of Klöckner lobby contacts: It could not be guaranteed that the list would contain all contacts, which could then lead to the accusation of "insufficient completeness".
Klöckner came under fire in 2019 after meeting Nestlé.
And a parliamentary question from the Greens in the same year revealed that the Minister of Food had repeatedly met with the agricultural and food lobby - above all the confectionery group Mars and the German Farmers' Association.
Environmental and consumer protection associations, on the other hand, came away empty-handed.
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