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Europe's leading human rights organisation and democracy watchdog - the Council of Europe - with 46 member states, including the EU's 27 nations, has called on Spain to improve regulation of conflicts of interest among the country's high-ranking, government officials, as well as their meetings with lobbyists, their privileges and the revolving doors that occur when they leave their public duties to work in the private sector. This has been stated in a report published on Wednesday by Greco, the Council of Europe's group of states against corruption, in which Spain is criticised for a "poor implementation" of the recommendations that the organisation made in 2019 to Spain.
The criticism was made because Spain has partially implemented only 13 of the recommendations while six have not been implemented at all. This has led Greco to include Spain in a non-compliance procedure and a request that the Spanish government reports on progress in this area for the next full meeting of the group, its 100th session.
As a result of these failures the Council of Europe has called on the Spanish authorities to pay more attention to preventing conflicts of interest among senior officials, as well as to increase transparency in the executive functions of senior government officials, including their advisors.
Greco noted that, while Spain's core government has adopted measures to avoid conflicts of interest in the general running of the country, it has not designed a specific strategy for central government officials who, due to their "political nature" and their "interactions with the private sector", face "particular challenges."
The report also called for improvements in the declaration of assets, the regulation of lobbying, revolving doors and the system of criminal liability for members of government, known in Spain as 'aforamientos' whereby the person in such a role goes on trial, but not the role. The report further highlighted the need for greater independence for the Conflicts of Interest Office and the Council for Transparency and Good Governance (both currently fall under the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance and Public Service in Madrid).
On revolving doors, Greco stresses that it is not enough that senior government officials cannot work in any lobbying role for two years after leaving public office, a rule that was included in the draft law on lobbying that fell through in the last legislature. The report points out that Greco's recommendation is "much broader" than just this temporary ban.
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