Omtzigt and Dassen will present their ideas on Monday in a joint initiative memorandum. With their proposals, they want to take the new management culture seriously. Ultimately, a cultural change to a transparent and purely acting government is more important than the rules that you agree on, according to the two. But to get there, agreements have to be made about what is and is not possible. They want to contribute to this with their note.
Omtzigt mentions three incidents where things went wrong in recent years: the 2015 coco affair, in which three large Dutch banks contributed to a law of the Ministry of Finance that would provide banks with a significant tax advantage. The way in which Rutte wanted to abolish the dividend tax in 2017 and the switch in 2021 from Minister of Infrastructure Cora van Nieuwenhuizen to Vereniging Energie-Nederland, the sector organization of energy companies in the Netherlands.
‘Not all on the edge’, says Omtzigt, ‘but far beyond it.’ The fact that the Netherlands has scored poorly on international corruption lists in recent years and that it does not comply with its agreements with the European anti-corruption watchdog Greco, underlines in his view that something urgently needs to be done. Omtzigt: ‘A lot has been said about integrity and new management culture, but little action has been taken yet.’
A new supervisor, an advisory committee and a lobby register
Omtzigt and Dassen joined forces for an initiative note. Omtzigt: ‘As MPs, we are so often critical of how it works now that we were obliged to write down how we think it should be done. The Netherlands likes to point a finger at a foreign country. Then you also have to strive for improvements yourself.’
Both MPs want to create three new bodies to monitor compliance with the rules: a supervisory authority, an advisory committee and a lobby officer. That is not a superfluous luxury, says Dassen. “This is a big and comprehensive topic. Moreover, by arranging this properly, you can save a lot of time later. Think of Minister Ernst Kuipers, who had to answer to the House of Representatives for his role at Erasmus MC and Breathomix (a company in covid breath tests with which Kuipers did business as a hospital manager, red.† Lobby supervisors can prevent you from going from incident to incident.’
All lobby contacts must be recorded in a registration system, if it is up to Dassen and Omtzigt. They strive for completeness. Lobbyists often have conversations of several minutes with MPs before or after Parliamentary Committee meetings. Those should also be recorded.
‘If you close a gap, a mesh will be found elsewhere.’
The measures proposed by Dassen and Omtzigt are for the time being only aimed at government officials and top officials. MPs stay out of harm’s way. According to the two MPs, this is because the Greco report also focuses on ministers. Omtzigt: ‘Steps have already been taken for MPs, such as abolishing the lobby pass.’
Part-time lobbyists are a category that is difficult to regulate, but often the target of criticism: former administrators and politicians who use their address book to promote interests, but will never call themselves lobbyists. ‘We realize that this memorandum does not solve all integrity problems’, say Dassen and Omtzigt. ‘If you close a hole, a loophole will be found elsewhere.’
According to Omtzigt and Dassen, the House of Representatives is now much more receptive to restricting lobbying practices than it was in 2015, when PvdA MPs Lea Bouwmeester and Astrid Oosenbrug issued the memorandum. Lobby in daylight presented. Dassen: ‘Proposals for a lobby register, a cooling-off period in which ministers are not allowed to go to the business community and the abolition of the lobby pass are now receiving much more support.’
The minister must come up with measures before September 30th
Omtzigt and Dassen hope that Minister Bruins-Slot of the Interior will embrace their memorandum. What helps in this regard is that the minister must come up with measures before 30 September to remedy the deficiencies identified by Greco. Dassen: ‘It would be nice if the minister said: this is exactly what I was waiting for.’
The Netherlands received eight recommendations from Greco in 2019. The government promised to do it. Two years later, none of those recommendations appeared to have been implemented. In one area – the lobbying ban for former ministers – regulations had even deteriorated. Of the sixteen Greco countries that were examined, the Netherlands, together with Slovakia, turned out to be the only country that had not made any progress.
In their memorandum, Dassen and Omtzigt cite examples of countries where the regulations on integrity and transparency are well regulated. They also cite examples from recent practice where the regulations have fallen short. For example, the husband of the former Minister of Health Edith Schippers did consultancy work in the healthcare sector that could conflict with Schipper’s work as a minister.
These are the main proposals that Dassen and Omtzigt are making to better guarantee the integrity of government officials and senior officials:
> Ministers are given a binding legal code of conduct, which sets out the integrity standards they must meet. A supervisory and enforcement authority will be set up to monitor compliance.
> An independent committee or official must guide and advise ministers in complying with this code of conduct.
> Within three months of their appointment, ministers must have an open discussion with the advisory committee. Periodic refresher training on integrity is mandatory.
> A legally required and public registration system for lobbyists is established. Lobbyists must provide an overview of their contacts every six months. Any contact must be reported within three days. An independent lobbying officer must monitor compliance with these rules.
> If there is a conflict between personal interests and official functions, this must be reported to the supervisory authority.
> Ministers are not allowed to work as a representative in the same sector in which they worked as a minister for the first two years after their resignation.
> Government officials must declare their financial and business interests before taking office.
> Anyone who breaks the rules will be fined.
Dassen and Omtzigt also want to introduce many of these rules for top civil servants such as secretaries-general and directors-general and for political assistants to ministers.