AUSTRIAN LOBBYING LAW AT A GLANCE

Lobbying regulations can promote different levels of transparency and accountability. In July 2012, Austria passed its first piece of legislation aimed at regulating the relationship between interest groups and public officeholders. The Austrian legislation of 2012 established a mandatory register and a formal set of rules including registration requirements, some spending disclosure requirements and sanctions for non-compliance.

The Austrian regulation presents the following characteristics:

Definition of Lobbyist: Article 4 of the law introduces a set of definition aimed at clarifying the concept of lobbying activity by establishing the boundaries of the application of the legislation. The legislation affects lobbying consultancies (Lobbying Agenturen), corporate groups Unternehmenslobbyisten), professional groups (Kammern) and public groups (Verbände). All interest representatives hired by these actors are subjected to the established rules when trying to influence public officeholders. Given these categories of actors, lobbying is defined as “any organized and structured contact with public officeholders aimed at influencing decision-making in the interest of a principal (Article 4, paragraph 1; 2012). The legislation covers both, legislative and executive body, as well as bureaucratic staff and public officeholders of subnational governments. Despite the extended coverage of the rules, the law presents a wide range of exceptions. In fact, religious and territorial interest groups, and law firms are exempted. Social partners are subjected to a limited set of registration requirements, which involve limited registration requirements and the exemption from the provisions on sanctions and role-accumulation (Article 2, paragraph 2-4).

Procedures of Individual Registration: The regulation establishes different registration requirements according to the nature of the interest group.

• Section A-divided in A1 and A2 (Lobbying Consultancies):  In Section A Lobbying Consultancies and Consultants have to register before establishing contacts with public officeholders by providing the following details about the Lobbying Firm: name, business number, address, website and beginning of the business year. A brief description of the activities and the mission of the firm are also requested. In addition, the lobbying firm has to adopt an internal code of conduct, declare the turnover of the previous business year, disclose the number of lobbying contracts accepted and provide the name and the date of birth of the lobbyists. In Section A2 Lobbying Consultancies have to disclose their lobbying contracts by declaring the name, the business number, the address, the website and beginning of the business year of the Principal/Client. The subject matter of the lobbying contract has to be declared. Section A2 is not public, and the Minister of Justice has exclusive access to the information. Third parties are allowed to gain access to this data upon permission granted by the Principal and the Consultant.
• Section B- (In-House Lobbyists of Companies): Section B requires In-House Lobbyists of Companies to register before establishing contacts with public officeholders by providing the following details: The name of the company, business number, address, website and begin of the business year, a brief description of the activities and the mission of the company, the name and the date of birth of the lobbyists. Firms have also to disclose costs related to lobbying activity during the previous business year if these exceed the amount of 100,000€. Firms have to adopt an internal code of conduct for In-House Lobbyists.
• Section C and D (Professional Associations and Public Interest Groups). Social partners are subjected to special provisions. Section C and D requires Professional Associations and Public Interest Associations to register before establishing  contacts with public officeholders by providing the following details: The name, the address and the website of the organization, the number of active interest representatives and the estimated costs related to interest representation activities. Contrary to Lobbying Consultancies and In-House Lobbyists of Companies, Professional associations and Public Interest Associations do not have to provide any sort of personal information. The registration requirements are limited to the provision of general and contact information of the association.
•  Individual and Employer Spending Disclosure: The regulation does not involve the regular submission of spending reports. Lobbying consultancies have to state the annual turnover  related to lobbying under section A1 and companies have to state if the costs related to lobbying exceeds 100,000€ under section B.
• Electronic Filing and Public Access to the Register: The Austrian Ministry for Justice, which represents the enforcing authority, provides interest groups and lobbyists with online registration. The access to the register is public for section A1, B, C and D. Section A2 containing information on the lobbying contract between principals and consultancies is searchable only by the Ministry of Justice. The access to this section is extended to other parties upon previous authorization by the registrants. This exemption is legitimized by the legislator for the need to protect privacy and the economic interests of the clients, which may face potential economic losses from the dissemination of information.
•  Mechanisms of Enforcement: The Enforcing Authority is represented by the Ministry of Justice, which has the power to impose sanctions. Who performs lobbying without being registered incurs monetary penalties of €20,000 or €60,000 for reiteration. The sanctions for non-compliance with the rules are €10,000 or €20,000 for reiteration. These apply also to principals, which are co-responsible for guaranteeing the correct maintenance of the registered information. The Minister of Justice has, in addition, the power to delete registrants from the register in cases of non-compliance or misbehaviour. The dismissal precludes lobbyists from registering for three years. It has to be underlined that special provisions exempt social partners from the enforcement of sanctions.
•  Revolving-door provisions: The legislators decided to keep revolving-door issues unregulated. However, the legislation does deal with role-accumulation. Article 8 states the incompatibility between the status of public officeholder and professional lobbyist. The scope of the revolving-door provision is however limited. Given the exemptions provided by the law, this Article only involves a limited category of lobbyists. It does not apply to In-House Lobbyists, and Interest Representatives of professional associations, public groups and social partners. Role-accumulation of MP and interest representative of business associations or trade unions is very common in Austria. Extending this provision to social partners could have been affecting many Members of Parliament.

 In sum, the Austrian legislation represents a regulation which focuses on lobbying consultancies and firms, providing less disclosure requirements for professional and public groups, and almost no requirements for social partners. The different sections A, B, C and D show different levels of strictness of the legislation among interest-group types in terms of the amount of information that has to be submitted. This is even more evident if the social partners are considered.

The Lobbying Gesetz was approved by the Nationalrat in June 2012 by a majority of two-thirds formed by ÖVP, SPÖ and FPÖ, while Greens and BZÖ voted against. The approval by the FPÖ was achieved  thanks to the inclusion of the exemption for lawyers and law firms. The endorsement of the Bundesrat to the lobbying regulation followed within a very short time period after the approval of the Nationalrat. The law took effect as of 1st January 2013.