Germany has adopted the Act Introducing a Lobbying Register for the Representation of Special Interests vis-à vis the German Bundestag and the Federal Government (Lobbying Register Act – Lobbyregistergesetz) of 16 April 2021, which has been amended by the Act Amending the Lobbying Register Act of 15 January 2024 (Federal Law Gazette 2024 I No. 10), which entered into force on 1 March 2024.

The Act shall apply to the representation of special interests vis-à-vis the bodies, panels, Members, parliamentary groups or groupings of the German Bundestag (and to the employees of these) and to the representation of special interests vis-à-vis the Federal Government (and to Parliamentary State Secretaries, State Secretaries, Heads of Directorates-General, Heads of Directorates, and Heads of Division).

Representatives of special interests are obliged to enroll in a public register (Lobbying register), which shall be established and maintained in electronic form by the German Bundestag.

Representatives of special interests are obliged to enroll in the Register as soon as any of the following conditions are met: the representation of special interests is carried out on a regular basis; it is established on a permanent basis; it is carried out commercially for third parties; more than 30 separate contacts have been made in the course of the past three months for the purpose of representing special interests; it is commissioned in exchange for compensation (Section 2.1).

Representatives of special interests shall provide information among which personal identification details, additional general particulars for the natural persons listed, areas of interests and objectives and description of activity, particulars of the identity of clients, particulars of annual financial expenditure, particulars of individual allowances and grants from the German public purse, the European Union, its Member States or from third countries, that are related to the primary object of the company or organization, particulars of gifts and other lifetime donations from third parties, etc. (Section 3). 

By enrolling in the Lobbying Register, representatives of special interests shall accept the code of conduct for representatives of special interests in the framework of the Lobbying Register Act.

In Iceland, lobbying activities are regulated by the Act on protection against conflicts of interest in Iceland’s Cabinet (Lög um varnir gegn hagsmunaárekstrum í Stjórnarráði Íslands), which entered into force on 1 January 2021. According to the Act, information on the relations between the government and stakeholders must be registered. Before a lobbyist seeks to influence the work of the government on behalf of a private individual, he or she is obliged to declare himself or herself and his or her role; legal entities and non-profit organisations may submit a notification regarding persons who conduct lobbying activity on their behalf, providing personal identification data and role, indicating e.g. on behalf of which parties the lobbyist acts and their main interests; etc. (art. 4). The Prime Minister oversees the transparency of lobbying activities as well as collecting and publishing declarations of interest, gifts and benefits for members of the government, keeping a register of information on the interests and gifts declared by ministers, of the exemptions provided for by law and information on stakeholder referred to in Article 4, with the register being published on the websites of Icelandic Government Offices Services (art. 7).Furthermore, on 5 December 2023, the Prime Minister’s Office has issued guidelines for public officials covering the conduct of PTEF’s (and other public officials) in their interaction with third parties and lobbyists (available here in Icelandic).

In Ireland, lobbying activity is regulated by the Regulation of Lobbying Act 2015, as amended (among others) by the Regulation of Lobbying and Oireachtas (Allowances to Members) (Amendment) Act 2023, n. 15 del 2023. 

According to the law, a person shall not carry on lobbying activities unless the person is a person registered in the Register of Lobbying, which is maintained by the Standards in Public Office Commission. 

In order to be included in the register, personal identification details shall be supplied; moreover, registered persons shall regularly make to the Commission returns, stating the relevant information relating to the client, the designated public officials to whom the communications concerned were made, the subject matter of those communications and the results they were intended to secure, the type and extent of the lobbying activities carried on, etc. (artt. 11, 12). Persons carrying on lobbying activities shall respect a Code of Conduct produced by the Commission, which has also the power to carry out investigations and may serve fixed payment notices in case of contraventions (art. 19, 21). Among the several provisions of the law, restrictions on post-term employment as lobbyist during a period of one year (cooling off period) is provided by virtue of art. 22.

The organization of professional lobbyist activity in the Knesset is grounded in the Knesset Law (amendment No. 25), 2008. According to the law, a professional lobbyist is only allowed to work in the Knesset with the permission of a committee chaired by the Knesset speaker. There are two deputies in the committee, one from the coalition and one from the opposition. A person who wants to be a professional lobbyist in the Knesset is asked to submit an application to the committee that contains their personal information, whether they are working for a corporation and the type of corporation, its name and number, the names of the employers who they want to represent in the Knesset and their type of business, as well as the names and business interests of everyone who has paid them money or given them benefits in connection to the professional lobbyist’s work in the Knesset. If the person applying is a member of the electoral committee of a party, they must write down the name of the party. The applicant must declare that they will act in accordance with the law.

On 13 October 2022, Latvia has adopted the Law on Transparency of Interest Representation with the aim of regulating any direct or indirect communication of a private individual in their own interests or the interests of other private individuals with a public authority representative in order to influence the initiation, development, taking, or application of a public decision. Information on interest representatives shall be entered in the register of interest representation, which shall be kept by the Enterprise Register of the Republic of Latvia.  According to the Law, interest representatives who implement a systematic interest representation are obliged to register with the register, indicating personal identification details, the fields of interest representation, the private individual for whom the interest representation is carried out, the date of making the entry, … (Sec. 3) and a system of declaring interest representation is provided for (Sec. 4). Moreover, some obligations of interest representatives are provided for, such as the obligation to disclose to the public authority representative the private individual for whose benefit the interest representation is being carried out and the unique identification number thereof and whether the interest representative implements a systematic interest representation, as well as to refrain from providing false information, from representing opposing interests in relation to the same public decision, etc. (Sec. 5).