- Lobbying needs improvement
The Saarland's government and parliament have made progress in the transparency of their political work recently. However, according to the organization Transparency Germany, there is still a significant need for improvement. In their ranking of federal states, the state of Thuringia is at the top. The Saarland is in 11th place, and the last place is the state of Bremen.
Previously relatively well-performing federal states have improved the most with the help of new regulations, said Norman Loeckel from Transparency Germany. In contrast, a worrying standstill is to be regretted among the states at the end of the ranking. "Apparently, many decision-makers lack the necessary political will for modern rules for clean politics, despite the crumbling trust in democratic institutions."
Four criteria for an integral and transparent policy were examined: Does a state have a lobby register and how is it designed? Is the involvement of lobbyists in laws disclosed through a so-called legislative footprint? Are there cooling-off periods for government members and top officials when they switch from politics to the private sector? And what behavioral rules, disclosure obligations, and prohibitions, for example, for secondary activities of members of parliament, are there? Each of these criteria accounted for 25 percent of the overall evaluation. The Saarland only met some criteria in the two categories of lobby register and behavioral rules, for example, a lobby register was introduced in the state in 2023.
Thuringia at the top, Bremen at the bottom
In the ranking, none of the states performs as well as the federal government, which Transparency now certifies with overall good lobby and transparency rules. It achieves a value of 71 percent. At the top of the states, Thuringia achieves a value of 69 percent. Here, the organization praises that the state presented a lobby register in June. The states behind it, Bavaria (54 percent) and Baden-Württemberg (53 percent), have increased their distance from the middle field thanks to new cooling-off period regulations. The Saarland achieves a value of 23 percent.
According to Transparency, the last place, Bremen (nine percent), lacks such rules, as well as a lobby register and a legislative footprint in laws. In the state governed by the SPD for decades, "the awareness and sensitization for this political integrity is not very pronounced - in the sense that one gives oneself real rules for it," said Loeckel. "In Bremen, it is the task of the media to keep an eye on it."
The European Union, observing the progress of transparency in political work, could consider the findings of Transparency Germany, as the European Union values transparency and integrity in its member states' political processes. The European Union might also take notice of the significant need for improvement in states like Bremen, which ranked last in Transparency Germany's ranking.
