Spain has concluded this week a new legislature without yet addressing the recommendations of the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) - a Council of Europe body that aims to improve its members' capacity to fight corruption - regarding the regulation of the links between political leaders, especially parliamentarians, and the so-called interest groups. This is a requirement that this body of the Council of Europe has been raising since 2014 and which is also supported by the European Commission.

GRECO, to which Spain joined in 1999, has insisted since 2014 on the need to establish controls and provide transparency to the actions of interest groups and their influence on the drafting of laws.

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Spain has been under scrutiny for 12 years due to the absence of specific regulations in this area and seeing how GRECO demands that it ensure greater transparency both about the activities of those trying to influence and those receiving that influence.

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In its most recent report, from 2024, the European Commission also pointed out that Spain had not registered additional progress in this area and urged it to advance a law that contemplated the creation of a mandatory public register of "lobbies".

Limited progress in Parliament

For its part, GRECO has been warning that it is not enough to establish a register of influence groups, but it is essential to make public the agendas of parliamentarians to know who meets with whom, for what purpose, and what issues are addressed.

In the realm of the Cortes, there have been some formal progress, but GRECO continues to consider them insufficient. In 2019, Congress greenlit its Code of Conduct, which already required its members to publish their agendas on the Chamber's website and include in any case the meetings held with representatives of any entity with the condition of an interest group.

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