by Albrecht Ude
Close ties between public officials and industry lobbyists have long led watchdog groups to question the influence moneyed private interests have on public policy. In October 2006, the German TV magazine "Monitor," revealed just how closely these two groups operate. According to its report, at least 100 lobbyists work alongside government officials within federal German administrative departments. Embedded within the government agencies, lobbyists receive paychecks from their private-sector employers, which include powerful companies and industry associations and continue to act in their interest — even drafting laws.
After the report's release, opposition members of Parliament led inquiries (Kleine Anfrage) into the cabinet. As "Monitor" reported in December 2006, the government's answers were often incomplete and inaccurate, especially regarding the number of lobbyists. The Comptroller's Office (Bundesrechnungshof) continues its inquiry. Meanwhile, the watchdog organization LobbyControl has published a database of all known cases, searchable by involved companies and government agencies and launched a campaign called "Lobbyists Out of the Ministries."
The embedding of lobbyists in federal agencies is just one example of the growing influence of private sector interests in German politics. Coupled with a lack of checks, including weak freedom of information and whistleblower protection laws, corruption is ordained to grow in Germany.
Take, for example, the Ministry of Defense's June 2006 festival for the Airforce Command in Cologne. The party was partially financed by private companies including European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), Thales, MTU Aero Engines, Diehl and four others. Collectively, the arms manufacturers paid 7,830 euros (US$10,781) for the affair. This situation is far from unique. Between August 2003 and the end of 2004, private companies paid more than 55 million euros (US$76 million) to sponsor federal agencies' events. The Ministry of the Interior called such sponsoring the "inclusion of society" into administrative action.
The party-sponsoring story was exposed in early 2007 by Hans-Martin Tillack, a reporter for the magazine "Der Stern." He accessed the information from the federal ministries under the Freedom of Information Act (IFG—Informationsfreiheitsgesetz). On his blog, Tillack described vividly how poorly the agencies had dealt with his requests under the act.
The IFG is a rather new law in Germany. It was the last bill passed by the so-called Red-Green government under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, enacted on Jan. 1, 2006. Minutes of the Parliamentary Commission for Interior Affairs (Innenausschuss des Bundestages) reveal that there was strong resistance to the law, especially from economic organizations. The law received tremendous support, however, from civil society. In fact, five civil society organizations had previously introduced draft bills of the law to Parliament.
Despite its passage, the law is still considered weak, even a year after it was enacted. "Regrettably some administration departments still have difficulties with practical implementation," said Peter Schaar, Federal commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BFDI—Der Bundesbeauftragte für den Datenschutz und die Informationsfreiheit).
For example, when Mr. Jörg Tauss, a member of Parliament for the Social Democrat Party (SDP&3151;Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands), requested access to the federal government's controversial treaty with the Toll-Collect Consortium, the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs (BMVBS—Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Bau und Stadtentwicklung) not only denied access, but also stated that it was unable to decide which parts of the treaty must remain secret. In the end, only four of 17,000 pages of the treaty were released.
"The opulence and width of the exception rules thwarts the intention of the FOI," said Dr. Manfred Redelfs, former expert on the FOI to the Parliament. "From the user's point of view, this is a disaster."
Dr. Thomas Leif, reporter and chairman of the German association of investigative journalists, the Research Network (Netzwerk Recherch), agreed: "Practical experience has shown the new FOI as useless. It is outlaid in mind of the old bureaucracy," he said.
In addition to problems accessing government documents, whistleblowers in Germany are still offered no protection under the law. To the contrary, whistleblowers are often regarded as traitors. According to News Enlightenment (INA—Intitative Nachrichtenaufklärung), a journalistic initiative similar to Project Censored in the United States, lack of whistleblower protection laws is one out of 10 most neglected issues in the German media, despite that fact that many news stories could not be exposed without them.
Although there has been little government headway made to protect whistleblowers, a private association, the Whistleblower-Network (Whistleblower-Netzwerk) was founded on Sept. 29, 2006, in Iserlohn, with support from News Enlightment. On June 7, 2007, it arranged its first conference in Bonn called "Whistleblowers and Journalists" (Whistleblower und Journalisten).
Anti-corruption laws are also noticeably lacking in the private sector, including the government's failure to set up a corruption register. In 1998, when the first Red-Green Coalition came into power, it expressed its intention "to combat white-collar criminality, crime affecting the environment, corruption and illegal employment." In 2002, the Coalition announced a renewed commitment to its fight against corruption, along with a legislative initiative to establish a corruption register. However, five years later, the register has yet to be established. In 2005, when power switched to a coalition of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU—Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands), Christian Social Union (CSU—Christlich-Soziale Union) and Social Democrats (SPD—Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands), their agreement failed to even mention the problem of corruption in Germany, except as a part of development policy.
Despite this fact, during recent years Germany faced several cases of white-collar corruption. The most noteworthy, perhaps, is the Siemens AG case, or, to be precise, the cases.
Siemens is no normal company in Germany. Founded by Werner von Siemens in 1847, the trust is active globally, and has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange (Euronext) since March 12, 2001. For years it has been regarded as a paradigm of a 'good' German company: efficient, clean and fair. Due to a number of recent scandals, however, this reputation has all but vanished.
In March 2007, Siemens was accused of paying Wilhelm Schelsky, the head of the small trade union Consortium of Independent Workers' Councils (AUB—Arbeitsgemeinschaft unabhängiger Betriebsräte), more than 30 million euros (US$41 million) to act as a counterweight to IG Metall, Germany's most powerful union, in labor disputes. In April, German prosecutors arrested Johannes Feldmayer, a member of the Siemens management board and the company's second-highest paid official, following raids on several Siemens offices in connection with the payments.
This is just one of many scandals to rock the company, however. In January 2007, the European Commission fined Siemens, along with 10 other companies, for participating in a cartel for gas insulated switchgear projects. Siemens' fine of 396,562,500 euros (US$546,007,078) constitutes the largest ever fine that the Commission has imposed on a single company for a single cartel infringement.
Additionally, the Regional Court (LG—Landgericht) in Darmstadt sentenced two Siemens officers in May for taking bribes of 6 million euros (US$8.3 million) from two managers of the Italian company Enel in exchange for contracts for gas turbines. Andreas Kley, who was CFO of the Siemens division Power Generation until 2004, received a two-year prison sentence with probation. Ex-Siemens Director Horst Vigener received a nine-month sentence, also with probation. The company was fined 38 million euros (US$52.3 million).
In the wake of the scandals, Heinrich von Pierer, chairman of Siemens supervisory board, retired in April 2007. That same month, Klaus Kleinfeld announced his plans to step down as Siemens president and CEO, when his contract ends in October. Peter Löscher, president of Global Human Health for Merck, is set to replace him.
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