- Schleswig-Holstein improves slightly in lobbying control
Schleswig-Holstein remains in the Lobby Ranking 2024 at the 4th place among the 16 federal states. Many of the state governments and state parliaments have indeed made some progress in the transparency of their political work, but there is still a significant need for improvement, according to the organization Transparency Germany in a new study.
In its ranking, the state of Thuringia is at the top, and the state of Bremen is at the bottom. Schleswig-Holstein has improved by 6 percentage points compared to 2022, reaching 38 percent. The biggest shortcoming in the north is the lack of a lobby register.
Federal states that were already relatively well off have improved the most with the help of new regulations, said Norman Loeckel of Transparency Germany. In contrast, a worrying standstill can be observed 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 were examined for an integrity and transparent politics: 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 requirements, and bans, for example, for secondary activities of members of parliament, exist? Each of these criteria accounted for 25 percent of the overall evaluation.
Thuringia first, Bremen last
In the ranking, none of the states performs as well as the federal government, which Transparency now considers to have quite good lobby and transparency rules. It scores 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, Bavaria (54 percent) and Baden-Württemberg (53 percent), have increased their distance to the middle field thanks to new cooling-off period regulations.
According to the study by Transparency Germany, the following shall be added to improve the transparency in Schleswig-Holstein: a comprehensive lobby register. Despite improving by 6 percentage points, Schleswig-Holstein still lags behind in this area, which is identified as its biggest shortcoming.
