Almost all of the 350 members of Congress still do not report the meetings they hold with interest groups and civil society organizations in the agendas that are included in their parliamentary files and that can be consulted on the Chamber’s website.
Specifically, as Europa Press has verified, only nine parliamentarians include in these agendas acts that go beyond their strictly parliamentary activities, despite the fact that the Code of Conduct of the Cortes Generales, approved in October 2020, requires them to account. of the rest of its activities and especially its meetings with interest groups.
There are even fewer deputies than in the previous legislature, as shown by the latest report on the application of the ethical code drawn up by the Conflict of Interest Office of the Cortes.
In April 2021, there were only 34 members of Congress who posted their agendas on the web, now they all do so, because the Chamber publishes them by default, but only 2.5% offer any extra information. The remaining 97.5% limit themselves to reporting on their parliamentary activities, that is, they only schedule plenary sessions or meetings of other bodies such as presentations, commissions or subcommittees of which they are part.
The report from the Office of Conflict of Interest corresponding to 2022 noted that only 24 deputies and 15 senators included in their agendas references to meetings or activities other than those purely organic of the Chambers.
In the one corresponding to 2023, to which Europa Press has had access, it appears that on December 31 of last year, all parliamentarians collected their institutional agendas, “although they were a minority in both Chambers who, in addition to the meetings of parliamentary bodies, published “other types of activities and meetings held with interest groups or associations and organizations of all kinds, interested in the legislative process”.
“It so happens that, compared to the XIV Legislature, in Congress the number of those who make the complete publication of the meetings of all types, related to their parliamentary position, that they hold, has decreased, while in the Senate, On the contrary, it has risen,” says the report.
Furthermore, in this document the Conflict of Interest Office insists on the convenience of regulating the activity of interest groups in the Cortes, including the establishment of a mandatory public registry for ‘lobbies’.
Of the nine deputies who do publish something more than their purely parliamentary activities, six are from the PSOE and three from the PP.
In the socialist ranks, those who publish meetings beyond the strictly parliamentary ones are five female deputies and one male deputy. One of those who has the most meetings with different groups is the Catalan Lidia Guinart, who began to provide more information about her activities in January. Since then she has been seen with the Gender Impact Platform YA!, the LesWorking Association, the National Silenced Childhood Association or with the production company Pandora Box TV, among others.
The Canarian María Dolores Corujo, for example, includes in her agenda interviews with AENA, the National Commission of Markets and Competition or vacation rental associations, although like the rest she does not specify who her interlocutors are.
For her part, the deputy for Badajoz Maribel García López, since December, has reported meetings with the athletics federation, with scriptwriters or with the Confederation of Schools of Plastic Arts, while the Almerian Inés Plaza met with women’s groups, with UGT prison officials, or the Platform for Equal Birth and Adoption Permits.
The Huelva native Cruz Santana also publishes her appointments with neighborhood associations and the PSC deputy José Zaragoza mainly reports on public activities such as party meetings or courses, but he also reviews a meeting with the most representative employers’ association of micro, small and medium-sized businesses. and self-employed workers of Catalonia (PIMEC).
Of the three ‘popular’ deputies who do report meetings unrelated to parliamentary activity, two only report their participation in public events, conferences or congresses. These are Silvia Franco and María del Socorro Cuesta Rodríguez, who expanded their agendas last February when they began to report on party meetings or their attendance at institutional events.
Her party colleague Macarena Lorente does report from the beginning of the legislature on activities carried out in her constituency, such as her meetings with neighborhood associations of Rota, with the staff of the Puerto II penitentiary center or with the Confederation of Businessmen of Cádiz .
