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"Loophole like a barn door": Merkel's GroKo threatens a hearty lobby flop

2021-02-17T04:55:24.895Z


How much transparency in terms of lobbying should it be? Angela Merkel's GroKo has been failing for months because of a new lobby register. It is all about the ministries.


How much transparency in terms of lobbying should it be?

Angela Merkel's GroKo has been failing for months because of a new lobby register.

It is all about the ministries.

  • Again and again Germany experiences major and minor lobbyism scandals and scandal.

  • Angela Merkel's GroKo has been fighting for a new lobby register for months - at the request of the

    Ippen-Digital central editorial office

    , the SPD warns of

    the end of some of the plans.

  • The Union and the SPD are fighting above all to include ministry employees.

    The lobby control association has made a clear judgment.

Berlin - In the summer there was a lobby scandal surrounding the CDU youngster Philipp Amthor - but the problem actually extends far beyond that: Where do financially strong lobbyists influence legislation in Germany?

This question is often difficult to answer for outsiders.

And currently it seems that the grand coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkel * will no longer find a remedy.

Although the subject has been on the government agenda for months.

A good six months before the general election, the SPD and the Union are still fighting for a new lobby register - it is a tough struggle.

At the request of

Merkur.de, the

parties are pushing

each other the

buck

.

According to the consensus, only two questions remain unanswered.

But they have it all.

In short: Should the lobbyists who do their work in federal ministries * and ministerial officials also be registered in the future - and should their concrete influence on the laws be published as soon as possible?

Merkel's GroKo threatens lobby disaster: SPD warns of birth defects for new register - months of dispute

The SPD has a clear stance on this, as MP Matthias Bartke explains.

From the perspective of the Social Democrats, it is not enough to register those lobbyists who contact parliamentarians *.

After all, most laws begin to emerge elsewhere: in the ministries.

And there often with the employees.

"Everyone knows that you have significantly more chances to represent your interests well if you exert influence at the 'birth' of the bill," says the chairman for election review, immunity and rules of procedure of the SPD parliamentary group.

However, it is precisely at this point that there is a dispute, confirms Bartke.

The latest draft law for the register was limited to the Bundestag and, of all things, left out the federal government and ministerial officials - anyone who lobbyed for them would not have to register.

Probably not by mistake: The government is already working “very transparently”, said Merkel in her summer press conference on the subject of the lobby register.

A second point of conflict is also linked: the “executive footprint”.

This is not - as with the actual "register" - just about documenting

who has

access to discussions with members of parliament, ministers or their employees.

Rather, politicians should, according to the will of the SPD, disclose which lobby actors are specifically involved in a law with which statements.

The Union parliamentary group appears to be reluctant to discuss this question.

The federal government could actually set such a rule itself by a cabinet decision or in the “joint rules of procedure”, says the CDU's parliamentary manager, Patrick Schnieder.

The debate was wrongly canceled in the legislative process.

He sees the Union “taken hostage” by the Social Democrats on this issue for months - although the SPD itself admits that this information is publicly available by parliamentary request.

But that is probably no longer the decisive point.

CDU / CSU in the criticism: SPD raises allegations in the lobby dispute - "postpone to Saint never

Because, according to Bartke, there is actually an agreement to adopt the "executive footprint" in a separate set of rules.

“After seven months of dispute over the question of whether the executive footprint should come, the Union has basically given in.

Here too, however, it blocks the involvement of employees in federal ministries, ”he complains.

The Union also refuses to set a deadline for its adoption.

Now one feared the postponement “to the never-a-day”.

The implicit allegation seems to resonate that the Union might even want to postpone the rule beyond the end of the legislature - and thus, depending on the outcome of the election, possibly bury it de facto.

+

The SPD wants to see not only the ministers but also their employees taken into account in the new lobby rules.

© Christian Spicker / www.imago-images.de

Schnieder also mentions specific concerns of the CDU * and CSU.

According to him, the Union parties fear that representatives of smaller or less professional groups in particular could be blocked from access to politics by high bureaucratic hurdles.

One would like to “protect the many solo self-employed persons and smaller agencies from the market power of the big lobby companies in the draft law” - in the end, some actors might even refrain from making contact, he warns.

For the SPD, however, this point is "not important".

Bartke does not accept the bureaucracy objection: "You cannot seriously use this as a reason for rejection if the purpose of the law is transparency in the parliamentary area."

Lobbyism in Germany: "A bad law" - Lobbycontrol sees "loophole like a barn door"

An apparently complex dispute.

To which, for example, the lobby control organization has a clear stance.

"The way the bill looks at the moment, it is not a good law, but a bad one," said expert Timo Lange on February 11th on the association's website.

Lobby control apparently sees no dangers for "smaller" lobbyists.

In the current version, the law stipulates that "only those who 'regularly' represent interests or who have had more than 50 interest representation contacts within three months have to register," says the association.

Lange called for both the "executive footprint" and the inclusion of the ministries in the lobbyist registration.

The expert would see a "barn door-sized loophole" in the law if lobbying among ministry employees should fall under the table.

"After the lobby scandals surrounding Philipp Amthor, Wirecard or the car toll, it would be extremely embarrassing, especially for the Union, to fail here," wrote Lange - and warned of a fatal signal for the election campaign.

Angela Merkel: Endless lobby dispute?

SPD is already threatening the election campaign

It is not yet clear whether this will happen.

Bartke and Schneider agreed that they wanted to get the law off the ground.

Schnieder reported on "constructive discussions even this week" and warned about compromises on both sides - while Bartke, when asked by

Merkur.de,

emphasized that without the above points of contention, one would have to "doubt the meaningfulness of the overall project": "We will not be a bad law saying goodbye."

In any case, the SPD * is putting pressure on Bartke himself with a view to the election campaign.

In view of the Amthor and Wirecard cases, as well as repeated excitement about Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner (CDU), the Union should actually also be interested in an agreement, he explains.

Bartke emphasizes: "It is of course correct: if the lobby register really fails, it will of course play a role in the upcoming election campaign."

Incidentally, Schnieder accuses his coalition partner of precisely this option: You get the impression that the SPD would rather have an election issue than an agreement, he explains.

Meanwhile, even the Council of Europe has called for improvement.

There is a “lack of transparency in the case of external influences on the federal government's agenda,” judged the anti-corruption committee Greco in December.

(

fn

) *

Merkur.de is part of the Ippen-Digital network

.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2021-02-17

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