ALTERNATIVE FÜR DEUTSCHLAND (AfD) AND LOBBYING

1. Demands that Members of Parliament devote their full attention to their parliamentary duties. Parliamentary duties should not be adversely affected by paid sideline activities. Sideline activities of Members of Parliament have reached such a scale that they are having a detrimental effect on democracy and parliamentary duties. Many representatives use their political mandate to obtain lucrative sideline jobs for personal enrichment. However, the greatest danger that sideline activities pose to democracy is that they are frequently associated with lobbyism, or even corruption.
2. Wide-spread lobbyism in Brussels and Berlin has to be curtailed.
3. For good democratic reasons, AfD wants to tighten rules for sideline activities and clamp down on bribery. Public representatives should thus be allowed to only pursue those jobs they performed prior to entering Parliament, but on a considerably reduced scale.
4. The AfD supports legislation on lobbyism with specific rights, duties and sanctions for both Members of Parliament and lobbyists, and which can be compared to the best examples from other democracies.
5. Aims to control lobbyism, ensure transparency in sideline jobs, and maintain the quality of work in Parliament.
6. Welcomes the work of organisations fighting lobbyism.

Note

Current Obligation to provide information for Members of the Bundestag (Code of Conduct)

(1) A Member of the Bundestag is obliged, in respect of the period prior to his or her membership of the Bundestag, to inform the President in writing of

1. The occupation he or she last practised;
2. activities as member of a board of management, supervisory board, administrative board, advisory board or other body of a company or of an enterprise operated in another legal form;
3. activities as member of a board of management, supervisory board, administrative board, advisory board or other body of a corporation or institution under public law.

(2) Moreover, a Member of the Bundestag is obliged to inform the President in writing of the following activities engaged in or taken up, or contracts binding on him or her, during membership of the Bundestag:

1.  remunerated activities engaged in alongside the exercise of his or her office, either by virtue of being self-employed or by virtue of being a salaried employee. These include, for example, continuing an occupation engaged in prior to membership of the Bundestag, as well as consultancy, representation, the provision of expert opinions, or writing or lecturing activities. There is be no obligation to inform the President of the provision of expert opinions or of writing or lecturing activities where the income agreed upon does not exceed the sum of €1000 per month or €10,000 per year.The same exemption applies to activity as a member of the Federal Government, as a Parliamentary State Secretary and as a Minister of State;
2. activities as member of a board of management, supervisory board, administrative board, advisory board or other body of a company or of an enterprise operated in another legal form;
3. activities as member of a board of management, supervisory board, administrative board, advisory board or other body of a corporation or institution under public law;
4. activities as member of a board of management or other managerial or advisory body of a club, association or similar organisation, or of a foundation of not exclusively local importance;
5. the existence or making of agreements whereby the Member of the Bundestag is to be assigned certain activities or receive pecuniary benefits during or after membership of the Bundestag;
6. interests held in a private corporation (Kapitalgesellschaft) or a partnership (Personengesellschaft), if this results in considerable economic influence on the company. The limits of the obligation to declare interests is laid down by the President .

(3) In respect of activities or contracts for which an obligation to provide information pursuant to paragraph (2), numbers 1 to 5, exists, the amount of income derived therefrom  shall also be declared if it exceeds the amount of €1000 within one month or the amount of €10,000 within one year. Calculations to determine whether the ceilings are exceeded is based on the gross amounts due for an activity, including expenses, compensation and benefits in kind.

(4) The President , after providing the Presidium and the chairpersons of the parliamentary groups with the opportunity to comment, issues implementing provisions on the content and scope of the obligation to provide information.

(5) The obligation to provide information does not include the declaration of facts concerning third parties in respect of whom the Member can invoke a statutory right to refuse to give evidence or a duty not to disclose confidential information. In such cases, the President may stipulate in the implementing provisions that the obligation to provide information must be fulfilled such that the rights set out in the first sentence are not infringed. To this end, the President may, in particular, include provisions requiring the naming of the economic sector concerned, rather than details of the client concerned.

(6) Declarations of interest pursuant to the Code of Conduct must be submitted to the President within three months of becoming a Member of the German Bundestag, or when changes or additions occur during the electoral term.