Spain will continue to lack a lobbying law that brings transparency to private relations between companies and politicians. The Congress of Deputies has rejected the royal decree-law approved by the Government at the end of August, so the regulation was in force for less than a month and has ended up lapsing. PP, Vox, and Junts voted against the rule. Spain will lose 260 million from European funds, less than expected after a negotiation with the European Commission.
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Practically the entire parliamentary spectrum is in favor of regulating lobbying activity. This has been expressed by the various parliamentary spokespeople during Wednesday’s debate. However, the formula used by the Government and the inclusion or exclusion of certain aspects in the law ended up causing a majority rejection in the chamber.
The Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Function, Óscar López, assured that the law would have brought “transparency” to a sector that wants to professionalize its work. Although the rule generated rejection in the Ibex 35, the employers’ association Apri, which groups the main companies, had expressed support for a law that Brussels has been demanding from Spain since 2021.
One of the points of friction was the inclusion of employers’ associations and unions in the category of lobbyists. López defended that this categorization would not affect social dialogue, as provided in the Constitution. He even committed to clarifying this discrepancy in a new regulation. The minister also highlighted that the mandatory register in which lobbyists had to enroll would depend on the Transparency Council, and not on the Office of Conflict of Interests and, therefore, his department. But all these attempts have been in vain.
PP, Vox, and Junts voted against the validation of the royal decree-law. The main opposition party’s argument is that, while it supports regulating interest groups’ activity, the route of an emergency decree is not appropriate. Junts, for its part, reproached the Government for including representatives of small companies and sectoral organizations as lobbyists, which would have made their access to the administration more difficult. The PNV abstained. The law, therefore, lapses after only three weeks of validity. In fact, during this time, the lobby register has had more than 300 registration requests and more than 3,000 inquiries.
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This is the third time Spain has tried to legislate on lobbyists, without success. During the last legislature, a bill was approved that lapsed due to the election call. In the current session, a new law has been processed that is blocked in the debate phase. The current royal decree-law has been the third unsuccessful attempt.
Government sources estimate the economic loss for Spain at 260 million due to the inability to legislate on lobbyists. 260 million in transfers that will not be received from the Recovery Plan. There is no longer time to meet the commitment reached with Brussels. Initially, the sources consulted raised this damage to between 800 and 1,500 million. However, the Government has renegotiated with the European Commission, which has taken into account Spain’s compliance with other reforms associated with the same milestone that includes the lobbying law.
1.4 billion less due to non-compliance
Spain has lost almost 1.3 billion euros from the Next Generation EU funds due to non-compliance with several agreed objectives. Yesterday it could not approve the lobbying law, which will reduce transfers by 260 million. Previously, the Executive also failed to approve reforms on the diesel tax, the one affecting the temporality of interim workers, and the one related to the digitalization of local entities. These three reforms froze 1.1 billion. The European Commission has set the cut in funds to a member country, although there are negotiations that can reduce the withheld amounts if the country meets other commitments.
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