The vice-president of the PSD parliamentary group, António Rodrigues, highlighted the prioritization of new lobbying legislation by the social-democrats, marking it as their first bill of the current legislative session.
“Today is a historic moment marking the conclusion of a process initiated about a decade ago. The approval of the lobbying regulation will enhance transparency, with broad consensus on this law to be commended,” stated the deputy.
The newly approved regime aims to regulate lobbying activities, ensuring legitimate representation of interests. It was passed by a wide margin with only the PCP opposing.
This law establishes transparency rules governing the interaction between public entities and both national and foreign private entities seeking legitimate representation of interests. It also introduces a Transparency Register for the Representation of Interests (RTRI), operating within the Assembly of the Republic.
Rodrigues pointed out that although the final text was based on proposals from various parties in previous legislatures, significant new elements were introduced by the social-democrats.
These include creating a unified register within the Assembly, adopting a single code of conduct for interactions between legitimate interest representatives and public entities, published as an annex to the law, and clarifying that only specific actions exclusive to lawyers in legal mandates are exempt from this law.
“In other words, lawyers must register when representing interests in third parties’ names unless performing a legal mandate,” he emphasized, noting the law’s applicability to all autonomous, regional, and local administrative bodies.
He mentioned that this new regime will ensure “greater transparency in public and private entity interactions conducting legitimate interest representation,” and it will influence the decision-making processes of public entities, providing a legislative footprint mechanism.
“Sanctions are included for duty violations, with the option to appeal to administrative courts,” he further noted.
The diploma will require regulation within six months post-publication to define RTRI’s management body and establish necessary standards for the registry’s functioning and monitoring, aligning the regulation’s approval with the law’s enactment (180 days after publication).
During the final vote, the text, coming out of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, was supported by PSD, Chega, PS, Iniciativa Liberal, Livre, PAN, and JPP.
PCP’s parliamentary leader, Paula Santos, opposed the creation of this new regime, arguing it detracts from the “real fight against corruption” and questioned the management and oversight of the new registry.
