PORTUGAL PUBLIC AFFAIRS LANDSCAPE

Author: Joaquim Martins-Lampreia, President of Omniconsul

Lobbying is currently not regulated in Portugal. The term ‘lobbying’ is still taboo, and the same goes for ‘lobbyist’. Common citizens tend to perceive lobbyists as influential, seeking undercover contact with politicians, frequently in a secretive way and with a complete lack of transparency. This bad connotation implies why professionals do not call themselves lobbyists, but rather experts in Institutional Relations or consultants in Government Affairs. As for public affairs, the term is not yet understood in the Portuguese market and, as the direct translation to “Assuntos Publicos” would be nonsense, practitioners preferably call themselves “Consultores em Relações Institucionais”, meaning “Institutional Relations Consultants”.

The question then is who are the lobbyists in Portugal? At a first basic level, they represent all people working for interest or pressure groups such as NGOs, corporate associations or Unions; all fully recognised in the Portuguese Constitution. Ironically, they do not consider themselves as engaging in any lobbying activity at all.

At a second level, there are about 60 external consultants, with different backgrounds. Half of these (around 30 people) are lawyers from the main law firms and with good connections in Government. They usually work at direct and top lobbying level (also known as Inside Lobbying). There are also ex-politicians (around 20 people), who in the past had a seat in Government or Parliament and who now offer their services based on a good network of influential people and political decision makers. Similar to lawyers, this group also works at a direct and top lobbying level, known as “business facilitators”.

Finally there are about a dozen people with a communications background who make up a third pool of practitioners. They work in the public affairs department (or so-called institutional relations department) of the biggest PR Consultancies. They mainly act at grassroots level, using the media, the Internet, events and other tools to put pressure on decision makers through the mobilisation of public opinion. Just for the record, to this date there are only two Portuguese public affairs consultancies acting at national and European level.

In short, in this small country of 10 million inhabitants there are about 60 people working in the field of public affairs.

Taking into account the country’s political landscape, it is easy to understand why until now there has neither been any professional organisation representing lobbyists or public affairs professionals, nor any code of conduct applicable to them. On several occasions during the last decade, however, it has been announced by decision-makers that lobbying should be regulated in order to have more transparency but nothing has happened so far.

The biggest problem lies in the fact that about one third of MPs are not working exclusively in parliament, but only part-time. And what do these 75 MPs do when not in the Parliament? They work for big law firms or in big companies of the private sector (Iberdrola, Microsoft, Novabase, etc.). In other words they are part-time MPs and “part-time lobbyists”, naturally defending the interests of clients or companies they work for. And, let’s be clear about that, their situation is totally legal, as the Portuguese Constitution allows it.

As long as those 75 “MP-lobbyists” continue to exist, it will be difficult to pass any bill seeking to regulate such activity. In order to have lobbying recognised and regulated in Portugal, unless the country makes a change in the Constitution forbidding part-time MPs. 

The public affairs landscape is nevertheless changing.Industry, Agriculture, Trade Associations and Confederations have started to implement public affairs training courses and seminars for their associates, in order to provide them with “new” and powerful Management tools. Several big companies have started the restructuration of their corporate structure, now including public affairs departments. Some Portuguese PR and communications consultancies have been transformed into public affairs consultancies, with new activities such as lobbying, intelligence, stakeholders’ management and so on.

Recommendations by TI Portugal

1. Parliament should regulate the lobbying activities though a dedicated law, acknowledging the diversity of influencing actors, including lobbying firms, communication agencies, corporate affairs professionals, business associations, civil society groups, and lawyers, among other.
2. The transparency of public decision-making should be increased through publishing of cabinet and senior public official agendas, in a similar way to the parliamentary committees. A thorough lobby register is desirable, but should not be seen as the sole solution to the risks posed by lobbying activities.
3. Parliament should reinforce the laws on conflict of interest, imposing exclusivity on MPs while in office, applying the law to members of Ministers’ cabinets, and extending cooling-off periods. Public authorities, namely the Ethics Committee and the Public Prosecutor should enforce the law.
4. Parliament should reinforce the competences and resources of its Ethics Committee, giving it the power to monitor incompatibilities while in office, revolving doors situations and eventually sanction those who do not comply with cooling-off periods.
5. Government, local executives, regulatory agencies and general public administration should resort to competitive and open public procurement when hiring financial and legal consultancies and controlling for incompatibilities. Members of expert groups should also be independent and scrutinized about real or potential conflicts of interest.
6. Government and parliament should create a legislative footprint that allows tracking the evolution of the legislative process, stakeholders and expert groups’ contributions.
7. Lobbyists should create their own codes of conduct and mechanisms of self-regulation drawing on the recognition of their role provided by the lobbying law.
8. Policy-makers should be more inclusive when meeting with and receiving inputs from stakeholders, expanding the participation of civil society.