Transparency International has released the first European report on lobbying and safeguarding political practices from undue influence. The study was conducted by the Transparency International offices in 19 European countries and includes the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the EU. Unfortunately, Bulgaria’s scores are extremely low which means it tops the list of European countries in lack of transparency and integrity in lobbying.

Linka Toneva, programme coordinator at the Transparency without Borders association and member of the team which conducted the study presents the results in an interview for Radio Bulgaria.

“The principal observation is that unregulated lobbying in Europe opens the door to lack of transparency, conflict of interests and corruption,” she says. “The survey gives scores of 0 to 100, (100 meaning top performance), assessing the levels of transparency and lack of integrity in the lobbying process. The average score registered on the basis of all countries and European institutions covered by the study is a mere 31 percent. It indicates there is room for lobbying behind closed doors. The only country with a satisfactory score – a little over 50 percent – is Slovenia. Lithuania and the United Kingdom get 50 percent. This means they are in the zone of insufficient guarantees though there do exist safeguards against undue lobbying. All the rest are in the group of low performance countries with regard to transparency, integrity and equality of access.”

The 25 percent given Bulgaria means the country is one-quarter protected against undue lobbying. Germany, Portugal and Italy fall into the same group; Hungary and Cyprus are bottom of the list.

“Bulgaria’s low score in lobbying transparency – 13 percent – really does give cause for concern,” Linka Toneva says. “The average percentage for the countries included in the report is 26. This low score for Bulgaria is due to the fact that lobbying is unregulated. A large portion of the influence different group interests exert on the legislative process and on the executive happens behind closed doors i.e. it is beyond public scrutiny. As to integrity in lobbying Bulgaria has a score of just 25 percent, which means it is in the group of countries whose performance is low. This score is due to the significant deficits in a number of laws pertaining to the sphere of lobbying. The majority of Bulgarian citizens are convinced that individual major economic interests have a significant influence on political and economic life in Bulgaria.”

Out of the 19 European countries included in the report, only 7 have introduced any kind of regulation in lobbying which means there is no obstacle to business interests influencing the everyday life of Europeans. Austria, France, Ireland, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia and the United Kingdom are the only countries with some form of legal regulation in lobbying.

“The European Commission is among the institutions with high scores – over 50 percent,” says Linka Toneva further. “The European Parliament has a lower score – 30, and the Council of the EU – a paltry 19 percent. There is a register of EU organizations which come in contact with the European institutions. This register is applied strictly with regard to the European Commission, that is the reason why the Commission’s score is so high.”

Transparency International calls on all EU countries and institutions to implement broad and extensive regulations in the sphere of lobbying, to introduce a public registry of lobbyists, as well as a “legislative footprint” to monitor and make public all forms of outside influence on the legislation as well as on all contacts between lobbyists and persons occupying public positions.

English Milean Daynova