The CEOE, Acento, Llorente y Cuenca, Kreab, Harmon, Reti… The Spanish business sector has a powerful machinery of influence and privileged relationship with public authorities. Organizations and companies with former politicians on their payroll whose job it is to try to defend the interests of their clients with both the executive and legislative branches. Now the Government is launching a new law that aims to regulate this relationship, which has little or no transparency.
Virtually no law or government is exempt from these practices. Business organizations or large firms that are dedicated to influencing politicians to modify certain regulations. It's called a lobby. Interest groups are lobbying to get amendments introduced. Some of these most important business movements during this legislature have been the one known as the "Aena amendment", which put in check the commercial business of the airport operator, the modifications to the Audiovisual Law or, at this time, the maneuvers of banks and energy companies to try to soften the taxes that are being processed in Congress.
Movements without light or stenographers that the Government now intends to limit. The plan is part of the coalition agreement between PSOE and United We Can. In this way, the council of ministers plans to approve this Tuesday the draft law on transparency and integrity in the activities of interest groups, according to the text to which La Vanguardia has had access and which Cadena Ser has advanced. The Ministry of Finance and Public Administration, the department that proposes the standard, reports that it could still undergo last-minute changes.
This is a pioneering initiative in Spain whose star measure is the unified and mandatory record of interviews between pressure groups and politicians. In this way, if a position of a ministry meets with an employer, it must appear in this registry. Or if the Spanish banking association (AEB) goes to Congress or the Senate to meet with the opposition parliamentary groups, it will also be known. It will be a public record, accessible and updated. It will depend on the conflict of interest office, attached to the Treasury, and will be available through the transparency portal.
In order to reach this level of publicity, the future standard aims to define what a lobby is. Which entities, in short, should be considered a stakeholder group and, therefore, should appear in that registry. It must be taken into account that among those affected there will be sectoral associations and employers, but also companies that represent their clients.
The rule that now begins its internal processing process in the Government, after a long phase of public consultation, also establishes the obligation to make its official agenda public. The Transparency Portal will be enabled and will be extended to the Secretaries of State.
The lobbying law also incorporates the so-called “regulatory footprint”, which means that the contributions made by pressure groups will be reflected in a file that can be consulted. In other words, if the electricity employers make a proposal to modify the tax under parliamentary process, it will be known what type of approach it is and whose part it is.
These interest groups have become a haven for former politicians. Practically no company is free from having former ministers or former deputies in their ranks. From the CEOE to private companies. These are organizations that sign up this type of profile, generally due to their contact list and their ability to reach the administration and parliamentary groups. The future lobbying law will try to regulate this transfer, setting a period of incompatibility of two years to carry out this type of work. It is an obligation already in force in the event that the route is between the administration and the private company.
The companies, in general, agree with the Government standardizing transparency efforts through a law. This is reflected in a recent report prepared by the Complutense University of Madrid and sponsored by Reti Spain. The work, entitled "Field study on the state of lobbying activity in Spain" and which consists of more than 1,000 pages, offers an X-ray of the sector at a national level.
In this way, the most powerful economic lobby is the CEOE, followed by Cepyme, Adigital, Ametic and Foment del Treball, in that order. In the case of civil society organizations, Cocemfe (Spanish confederation of people with physical and organic disabilities) la Once and Greenpreace stand out. The main target topics for discussion by stakeholders during 2021 and 2022 were European funds, the climate change and energy transition law, the integrated national energy and climate plan, and decarbonisation. In the agri-food sector, the common agricultural policy (CAP) stands out.
In the case of private consultants, there are different conclusions. When it comes to assessing transparency, Acento Public Affairs comes out on top, the firm created by the former Minister of Public Works and heavyweight of the PSOE at the time of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Their ranks are swelled with profiles such as the former minister of the PP Alfonso Alonso or, until last year, Antonio Hernando, today number two in Pedro Sánchez's cabinet. Llorente and Cuenca also have former PSOE and PP ministers on the payroll. This is the case of Jordi Sevilla or Manuel Pimentel. Harmon, for his part, has Eduardo Madina, Pedro Sánchez's rival in the first primaries. And Kreab has Daniel Fuentes, former number two in the Moncloa department of economic affairs. The list is long.
