The Council of Ministers approved this Tuesday a royal decree-law for the creation of a “public and mandatory” register of interest groups to guarantee greater transparency and accountability. This decision comes after the lobby bill, which includes the creation of this state register of interest groups, stalled in Congress due to the difficulty of gathering the necessary consensus among parliamentary groups.
By being approved by royal decree, the regulation will come into force when published in the Official State Gazette (BOE) and must be ratified by Congress within a maximum period of 30 days. Specifically, the regulation approved by the Government creates a public and mandatory state register of interest groups, as explained by the Government spokesperson and Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations, Elma Saiz, at the press conference following the Council of Ministers.
With this register, the “relationship between interest groups and public personnel susceptible to influence is regulated in the State administration,” Saiz explained, adding that “the Royal Decree details who are considered interest groups, what their influence activity is, and who are susceptible to receiving it.” “This register is mandatory and will be managed and supervised by the Transparency and Good Governance Council, which will handle its governance and also its management,” she pointed out.
“Interest groups are natural and legal persons and groupings without legal personality, including platforms, forums, networks or other forms of collective activity, whether acting on their own behalf or on behalf of others, regardless of the form they take or their legal status, and that carry out influence activities on public personnel and/or office holders. For example, companies and NGOs that intend to perform lobbying functions before the General State Administration,” the Government details in a press release, which also explains that an “influence activity” is “any direct or indirect communication” of a lobby through “any means or channel with the purpose of influencing public decision-making, the design or implementation of policies, or the drafting, modification or approval of regulatory projects for the benefit of their own or third-party interests.”
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The decree incorporates the amendments presented by parliamentary groups during the processing of the Bill in the lower house. “The Government of Spain thus fulfills its commitment to transparency, institutional regeneration, and democratic quality. Three indispensable pieces in the puzzle of citizen trust,” indicates the Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Function, Óscar López, in that note.
In October 2020, with the socialists Meritxell Batet and Pilar Llop as presidents of the Congress and the Senate, respectively, both chambers approved the Code of Conduct of the Cortes in response to requests from the Group of States against Corruption of the Council of Europe (GRECO). That regulation addressed lobbies in article 6.2, which established the obligation of deputies and senators to make their institutional agenda public, “including in any case” meetings with representatives of “interest groups.”