After the mask affair, the Union is publicly calling for more transparency - but according to information from Merkur.de, the will to change is not that great.
Berlin - The Union is under intense pressure in the mask affair - and, according to its own admission, wants to react to the alleged misconduct of its MPs Nikolas Löbel (CDU) and Georg Nüßlein (CSU) with stricter lobby rules.
But in practice, the will to change seems to be clearly subdued even now, in the midst of the scandal.
On Wednesday morning, the GroKo parliamentary groups from the Union and the SPD met to advance the agreement on a lobby register that was agreed before the scandal.
The Union has shown no willingness to take further steps, said Matthias Bartke, SPD participant in the round,
Merkur.de
on Wednesday afternoon.
Lobby scandal about Nüßlein: Union does not want to improve the lobby register - and speaks internally of a "misunderstanding"
"This morning I would have told you that I see great opportunities for movement," reported the SPD chairman in the committee for election review, immunity and rules of procedure.
The Social Democrats were pleased to note that, according to a report in the
Süddeutsche Zeitung
, the Union wanted to improve the lobby register again.
At the meeting there was then a disappointment: The CDU and CSU had said that the CDU and CSU had “misunderstood the situation”, and that there was also talk of a “misunderstanding”.
The party was not prepared to tighten the rules or the fines.
According to Bartke, the Union and the SPD finally agreed to pursue the compromise that had already been agreed before the Löbel and Nüßlein cases.
Thus, among other things, an "executive footprint" long demanded by the comrades in legislative proposals is not - as are further regulations as lessons from the alleged scuffles in the procurement of masks.
The SPD “would have liked to have had the executive footprint now,” explained Bartke.
However, the party was also interested in its election promise of a lobby register - which is why they were satisfied with the compromise.
Lobby dispute in the Bundestag: is an “Amthor law” coming?
Union wants to present SPD bill
However, the fair doesn't seem to have been completely read.
As Bartke
Merkur.de
further explained, the SPD and Union want to discuss a reform of the transparency rules on Friday.
According to Bartke, the basis is the latest demands of the SPD.
But an initiative by the CDU and CSU also seems conceivable.
"This is first of all a reaction to the Amthor cause," said the Hamburg SPD MP with a view to the upcoming deliberations.
Amthor had come under massive criticism for campaigning for a US company for which he was given stock options.
But since Nüßlein and Löbel had also billed commissions through their companies according to current knowledge, the topic was “music in”.
Mask affair draws wide circles: SPD calls for 10 steps for better lobby rules - Union sets ultimatum
Bartke did not want to judge whether further regulations with the Union are possible beyond the group's internal “code of conduct” announced by Union faction leader Ralph Brinkhaus (CDU) and CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt: “At first I do not expect anything,” he said .
On Tuesday, the SPD presented a “10-point paper” for stricter lobby rules.
In it she calls for a ban on paid lobbying activities in addition to the mandate, a ban on accepting donations for MPs and an exact publication of additional income.
The scope of secondary employment should have to be specified, as well as stock options and company holdings from 5 percent of the voting rights - not only from 25 percent as today.
Party donations should be limited to a maximum of 100,000 euros per donor annually.
The obligation to publish donations is to be reduced from 10,000 euros to 2000 euros.
Meetings with lobbyists should be published in the case of legislative proposals.
Union meanwhile focuses on internal rules.
The leadership of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group has given all its members until Friday evening to comment on possible financial advantages in connection with pandemic-related transactions.
The MPs would have to "make a statement by Friday 6:00 p.m. that no such benefits were achieved in the context of the Covid 19 pandemic," wrote Brinkhaus and Dobrindt in a letter to the MPs.
(
fn with material from dpa
)
