Lobbying: Around one billion euros for lobbying

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Whenever politicians plan projects, they are also reliant on companies, environmental or consumer protection associations, trade unions or professional associations to contribute their expertise. However, there is a fine line between legitimate representation of interests and lobbying that goes beyond what is permissible. And it is crossed time and again: scandals such as the recent Huawei case in Brussels, the events surrounding the substitute fuel HVO100, Maskenbeschaffung or Augustus Intelligence have led to lobbying often being seen in a bad light. And this has led to increased pressure on lobbyists and politicians to create more transparency in recent decades.

Transparency registers are one instrument for this. These are now widespread around the world; from a German perspective, the EU Transparency Register and the Lobbyregister at the German Bundestag in particular play a central role. The latter is now celebrating its third birthday – and has grown considerably since its introduction. Registration as a lobbyist in the lobby register is mandatory for all those who wish to influence German legislation – except for churches, employer and employee representatives.

Anyone who lobbies must be listed in the register

Whether an individual, large corporation, environmental association or consulting firm: Anyone who lobbies must be listed in the register: at the turn of the year, there were 7,164 entries for interest groups in the database maintained by Parliament itself. A total of around 27,000 people are entrusted with lobbying – - that's a good 42 per member of the 21st German Bundestag. Or a good half as many as there are employees in federal ministries.

As the costs of lobbying also have to be given in ranges, an order of magnitude can now be derived from the lobby register: The companies, associations and individuals registered there spent between 883 million and 937 million euros on lobbying, mostly on personnel. However, as some interest heavyweights such as trade unions and employers' associations are not required to register due to their special legal status, the total figure of half a billion euros is probably accurate.

In the area of IT and digitalization, there are enormous differences in the lobbying dimension. While IBM Germany spent around 810,000 euros per year in 2023, the Meta subsidiary Facebook Germany spent a good 1 million euros per year, SAP 1.44 million, Microsoft 1.66 million and Google Germany 1.7 million. Amazon spent 1.23 million euros on the interests of its Web Services division and around 1.6 million euros on its other German subsidiary. The leader of the individual companies in the sector from Germany: Deutsche Telekom with 2.26 million euros. But one company clearly tops this figure once again: Huawei Technologies. The Chinese company spent almost 3 million euros on lobbying in 2022.

IT associations almost on a par with leading associations in total

The IT industry association Bitkom spent almost 5 million euros on lobbying, the Association of Telecommunications and Value-Added Service Providers (VATM) spent 430,000 euros and the Internet Industry Association Eco spent 700,000 euros. The German Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers' Association (ZVEI) spent slightly more than Bitkom, VATM and Eco combined on lobbying: 5.36 million euros.

This means that the lobbyists responsible for digital issues are not at the forefront: The Federation of German Industries (BDI) spent a good 8.8 million euros on representing the interests of its members, significantly less than the German Insurance Association, which spent 15 million euros. At 9.23 million euros, the German Chemical Industry Association (VCI) pays more than the VDA, the association of the automotive industry, which is considered powerful, with 7.32 million euros. All of these associations also represent strong interests in some aspects of digitalization, as does the Federation of German Consumer Organizations with 8.8 million euros and the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft with 6.2 million euros.

However, much smaller entities also influence politics: AI darling OpenAI remained below the 10,000 euro mark in 2022 according to its figures. The German AI hopeful Aleph Alpha came in at 30,000 to 40,000 euros – the same range as the Bielefeld-based data protection association Digitalcourage, the D-64 association stated 20,000 to 30,000 euros, and the professional association of data protectionists (Berufsverband der Datenschutzbeauftragten Deutschlands, BvD) a good 110,000 euros. Anyone who fibs here could soon have to fear tougher sanctions.