Interview published on “Politico EU”, Monday 11st of April 2016
ITALIAN TRANSPARENCY: The dramatic resignation of Italy’s economic development minister Federica Guidi sparked the usual soul-searching in Rome over the almost complete absence of any transparency measures in national politics. Guidi’s situation was about more than lobbying: The minister’s de facto relationship with a businessman who stood to gain from government decisions was a conflict of interest scandal just waiting to explode. Yet local media took the opportunity to summarize the legislative reform proposals which have been bubbling away for some time. If adopted, the reforms would enact a transparency regime stronger than the one now in place in Brussels. But here’s the thing… The reforms will never happen.
POLITICAL WILL THAT WON’T: Gianluca Sgueo, an adjunct professor at New York University in Florence, says the reforms are on a road to nowhere and there is little political will to change that. “Every time something like this comes up, the reforms are mentioned but nothing happens,” Sgueo says. “Not once have these proposals made their way from a committee to a parliamentary debate.” Sgueo reckons Italian politicians are worried about the impact the proposed reforms would have on their own work. “They might be OK with imposing demands on lobbyists, but then the transparency requirements would shed light on their own meetings,” Sgueo says.
ITALIAN STATE OF PLAY: The problem in Italy is that lobbying transparency needs to be legislated. The government can’t simply impose a code of conduct on parliament — only parliament can do that and it has not taken any steps in that direction. At a national level Italy’s only experience with a transparency regime was between 2012 and 2013, when an agriculture minister by the name of Mario Catania started to upload meetings with lobbyists to his website. The initiative was not taken up by any of his colleagues and was soon forgotten. At a regional level, four regions have some transparency measures in place: Tuscany, Umbria, Abruzzo and Molise. That’s it. “The absence of transparency rules is bad for lobbyists as well,” Sgueo says. “When you hear the word ‘lobbyist’ in Italy it is always as a criticism — this is a result of the lack of transparency surrounding their work.”