Many states fall in the lobby ranking by
More Transparency: How Much Influence Do Groups and Companies Have on Politics? - That's what the anti-corruption organization Transparency International is calling for. While there have been improvements in many federal states, most of them still don't meet many criteria.
Transparency International Germany, the anti-corruption organization, sees only limited progress in regulations for disclosing the influence of lobbyists in most federal states. In a "Lobby Ranking", 12 out of 16 federal states have slightly improved compared to the last evaluation in 2022. However, 13 states do not even reach half of the possible criteria. The federal government is still the best performer.
The organization created the first Lobby Ranking in 2021, with an update following a year later. The transparency and integrity rules of the federal government and the federal states are compared regarding four criteria. It is evaluated whether a lobby register exists, i.e., a disclosure of which groups or companies influence politics.
Transparency obligations and cooling-off periods, after which former politicians can enter the economy, also play a role. The so-called legislative footprint, which includes all lobby contacts of an MP during a legislative process, is also taken into account.
In the current ranking, the federal government is still at the top and performs better than all federal states: It is rated at 71 percent thanks to the now quite good lobby and transparency rules. The top performer among the federal states is still Thuringia, with 69 percent. Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg follow with 54 and 53 percent, respectively. These states could have increased their distance from the middle field thanks to new cooling-off period regulations, it was said.
At the bottom are Rhineland-Palatinate and Lower Saxony with 19 percent each, Saxony-Anhalt with 18, and Bremen with 9 percent. In the states at the bottom of the ranking, "a worrying standstill can be observed due to a lack of activities," said Norman Loeckel of Transparency. Apparently, there is a lack of political will to create modern rules for clean politics. This is evident in the fact that 13 out of 16 federal states do not even meet half of the Lobby Ranking criteria.
Loeckel emphasizes: "A large number of federal states thus offer too little traceability of political decisions for citizens and too many opportunities for potential illegitimate lobby influence."
Transparency International Germany has highlighted the need for improved regulations on lobbying disclosure in most federal states, as only 13 out of 16 states meet half of the required criteria. In the current "Lobby Ranking", the federal government continues to lead with the best lobby and transparency rules, scoring 71%, while states like Rhineland-Palatinate and Lower Saxony lag behind at 19% each, offering limited traceability and potential for illegitimate lobby influence.
