Spain has an increasingly large lobbying club, a sector that the Government now wants to urgently regulate. Ibex 35 companies have their own teams to try to influence political decision-making, and in recent years around a dozen companies have proliferated mainly in Madrid, trying to influence laws for their clients, who are national and international companies. The winner is the one with the best contact agenda in the ministries and Congress. The problem is that the activity does not have full transparency, which makes the Spanish sector an anomaly in Europe. The first Council of Ministers of the term approved a royal decree-law that must be ratified this month and which currently lacks the necessary support.
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Acento, Llorente y Cuenca, Harmon, Kreab or Rud Pedersen, among other lobbying firms, employ politicians who were ministers, secretaries of state, chiefs of staff or deputies. From PSOE, PP, CiU, ERC, PNV, Sumar and even in one case, Podemos. The companies have formed a dense network of hires in search of contacts and the possibility of influencing political decision-making. To these must be added the Ibex 35 and business associations, with great activity. Lobbying has not stopped growing in Spain in recent years. In 2025 the sector’s revenues amounted to 315 million, double that of three years earlier.
The Government agreed with Brussels within the framework of European funds that Spain would have its own lobbying law. The Executive approved a draft law in 2025 that is blocked in Congress and has legislated urgently, via royal decree-law. According to the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Function, promoter of the regulation, “we are late.” “The approval is not only taken due to the need to comply with milestone 432 of the Recovery Plan, but also responds to the Government’s decision to respond to a strong social and political demand,” argues the department led by Óscar López. “The current text meets the requirements demanded by the Commission, on the one hand, and, on the other, reflects the hard work done to integrate all the sensitivities of the parliamentary spectrum, as evidenced by the 19 transactional amendments already signed at the end of last year, plus many others individually. In addition, the regulation has strong social consensus demanding the regulation of this type of relationship,” it states.
If the law is finally approved as it is “the Koldos would multiply,” points out a listed company
But companies have another view. The epicenter of the controversy is the public, state, and mandatory registry, which will depend on the Transparency Council, and where very precise information must be provided about meetings with politicians: date, place, participants, summary of what was discussed and documents exchanged. Almost absolute transparency.
The actors affected by the law are trying to prevent it from being ratified in Parliament. Several Ibex 35 companies express to La Vanguardia their outright opposition. The large listed companies would be among the biggest harmed by the regulation. Energy, banks or telecom sectors, largely regulated, base part of their work on contacts with the Administration. Therefore, they believe that if the lobbying law ends up being approved as configured “any informal contact” with ministries or parliamentarians “is de facto disabled.” “With this regulation the Koldos would multiply,” says one of these companies.
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From another Ibex firm they point out that “working groups between companies and Administration are already being paralyzed” for fear of the sanctioning regime, which contemplates fines of up to 40,000 euros and disqualifications of five years. One of the main lobbying companies adds that “the registry would paralyze the activity of the Department of Economic Affairs of La Moncloa, whose job is to meet with companies to learn about their concerns.”
A public and mandatory registry must reflect participants, date, place and documents of the meetings
The vote in Congress to ratify the regulation again depends on Junts. Carles Puigdemont’s party maintains a critical position regarding the fact that the Government has legislated urgently and has forgotten the amendments registered by the formation two years ago. For example, it proposed specifying to whom the regulation is addressed to differentiate professional lobbyists from organizations, associations and sectoral entities whose size and activity mean they are not considered a lobby. The Executive has not incorporated these demands and, if nothing changes, the Catalan group is prepared to vote against. The lobbying law would have to wait for another opportunity.
From the ‘Aena amendment’ to tax reform
The Government hopes that the royal decree-law it has proposed will end up passing the parliamentary process because, they say, “it equates the Spanish lobby to Europe.” The regulation “consolidates and incorporates the main experiences and lessons learned from countries in our environment, such as Ireland, France, Slovenia or Lithuania,” points out the Ministry. The ultimate goal of the law is, among other aspects, that citizens can know who tries to influence decision-making. Thus, an interested person could have access to the usual meetings that Ibex companies and specialized firms hold with politicians. In recent years there have been several conversations that ended in victory for lobbying companies. One of the most important was the so-called ‘Aena amendment,’ a legislative change introduced by a well-known lobbying company in a law to reduce the rent of airport premises due to the reduction in passengers that occurred during the pandemic. The initial hole for the listed company was more than 1,000 million euros. Along the same lines, several large companies tried to influence the tax package approved by the Government in December 2024 with mixed results. The banks did not manage to eliminate the tax on their profits.
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