First, the Chamber’s commission meetings should be made open to the public, a proposal that has already received support from Chamber president Fernand Etgen.
MP Josée Lorsché, leader of the Greens’ parliamentary group, explained that the party sees three potential scenarios: “We propose, for instance, to open up those commissions where the [commission] president is in favour. That helps provide insight into the functioning of said commission. The second scenario we see is the presentation of draft laws, which is usually not a highly political debate. But, simply put, seeing what a law is, how it is presented, what its history is, and what the goal is. That would be an interesting thing for citizens to see. And the third scenario would be the opening up of the budgetary control commission, because that is the one handling tax-payer money. How are tax-payer funds invested? It is the money of the people.”
MP Lorsché further argued that the transparency register, only set in place last year, is already in need of reform. At present, the register completely fails to achieve its purpose, said co-party president Djuna Bernard: “The document was actually meant to show which organisations, professional associations, interest groups, or NGOs we as MPs meet. We set it in place last year, but at this stage, it is nothing but a list of organisations that one of the 60 MPs has met with in the past. It does not say which MP has met with which organisation and, most importantly, about which issue.”
Aim of this register was to give citizens an overview as well as an indication of where an MP gets their policy proposals from. The idea was based on a proposal from MP Sven Clement. Every month, each MP and group would need to publicly disclose the identities of the lobbyists they met up with that month. Already in 2021, when the idea took form, Clement acknowledges that checking wether all information entered is correct would be complicated.
The third point that the Greens want to implement is increasing transparency when it comes to MPs’ additional income and economic interests.
“Amounts over €200,000 for instance. We think that we can create a more detailed record, simply because we are dealing with enormous sums. But also for SCIs, which allow MPs to generate large revenues with properties.”
Greens officials further noted that MPs are currently not mandated to declare what they earn outside of SCIs, real estate investment companies, which the Greens say has to change.
MP Lorsché argued that the Chamber’s regulatory commission, of which she is a member, is actually in charge of discussing such proposals: “It is here where the respective reforms of the Chamber regulation are discussed. Or, better put, should be discussed. In the exceptional case that this commission, which is presided by MP Roy Reding [from the Alternative Democratic Reform Party], holds a meeting, which already shows the first problem. This commission rarely ever meets. Mr Reding is seldom to be found in the Chamber. And our demand has repeatedly been for him to call a meeting of the commission so that we can work on the regulation. But, I often feel as though I’m a ‘lone voice in the wilderness’.”
The Greens politician explained that when the commission finally meets, a report with novelties will be written and presented to the Chamber. A vote is then to take place so that the changes can come into force before the end of the legislative period, noted MP Lorsché.
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