Portugal’s government has approved new rules tightening transparency around attempts to influence policy, requiring contacts between interest representatives and ministers to be recorded and, in some cases, made public.

New regulation

The regulation sets out how the lobbying law, which was adopted in January, will work in practice, ECO News reports. Moving forward, every minister must appoint a staff member to ensure that the interactions are logged on a single electronic platform.

Beyond formal meetings, the new regulation also includes “correspondence; the sending of information or documents; events; conferences and participation in consultations on draft legislation or other regulatory acts.”

Register requirements

Before a meeting is scheduled, the designated official must check that the representative is properly registered, and if a lobbyist is not registered, the meeting cannot be held or even scheduled.

The registered log must include the date of the contact, the identity of the interest representative, the type of interaction, their registration number in the transparency register, the entity represented when applicable, and a short description of the purpose of the contact, ECO News reports.

Special exemptions

Lists of meetings involving each minister or cabinet member will be published quarterly on the government portal, although some contacts may remain confidential. This includes cases involving state secrecy, judicial secrecy, commercial secrecy, personal data, national security, public order or fundamental rights. However, even in those cases, the interaction still must be recorded, with the legal basis for confidentiality identified.